The Darkness is filled with life and light.
Video above is fascinating, and touches on how the marine ecosystem may be affected by changing climate and loss of sea ice.
Below, David Barber of the University of Manitoba fleshed some of that out for me not long ago.
Here is evidence of declining glaciers adding ice into the sea, while more land is exposed. Maybe the scientists involved will modify their expectations of the future with experience and hindsight, or maybe the acceleration will still catch them by surprise. Only time will tell.
Greenland Glaciers’ Decline Tracked by NASA Satellites
“Nobody expected the ice sheet to lose so much mass so quickly,” geophysicist Isabella Velicogna of the University of California, Irvine, said in the report. “Things are happening a lot faster than we expected.”
https://weather.com/science/environment/news/2018-04-09-greenland-glaciers-decline-nasa-photo
AGU also report on the unprecedented melt in the Arctic: The acceleration of melt surely means we humans need to accelerate on our efforts to decarbonise, hope all world powers can see that too.
Melting of Arctic mountain glaciers unprecedented in the past 400 years
Glaciers in Alaska’s Denali National Park are melting faster than at any time in the past four centuries because of rising summer temperatures, a new study finds.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/04/180410132837.htm
A world away from the Arctic and the floating sea ice, the common link is the word “accelerating”:
Researchers connect the data to show an accelerating trend for marine heatwaves in our oceans
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-04/uons-hlm040918.php
Same story presented in detail by Carbon Brief
Marine heatwaves are now lasting longer and occuring more frequently across the world than in the early 20th century, a new study finds.
The research, published in Nature Communications, compiles a global record of marine heatwaves going back as far as 1925 for the first time.
The new dataset shows that marine heatwaves have become 34% more likely and 17% longer between the early 20th century and the early 21st century.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/marine-heatwaves-have-become-34-more-likely-over-past-century
Two great video clips—-the first one a visual delight as well as informative, the second one an especially clear and concise explanation of what’s going on with those among the biota that worry me the most—-the little guys.
Life in the arctic evolved during millenia of ice presence—-destroying that ice over the span of a century is not good—-let’s hope enough adaptation will occur to keep something alive up there.