Summer can be a fleeting thing in western and northern Canada. Last week was a prime example … +30 C to start the week but closer to +3 C to start the first “summer” long weekend. We can only hope for a turn around!
The annual meeting of the International Arctic Buoy Meeting will be held in a couple weeks in Oslo — just prior to the IPY Final Conference. The IABP coordinates the deployment of weather, ice and oceanographic buoys throughout the Arctic ocean. Today’s map of Arctic sea ice shows that the ice extent in the Arctic right now is lower than it was at this time in 2007 — the year of the minimum sea ice recorded in the Arctic. It is a very interesting development — particularly in light of the results that suggest that much of the remaining ice is thin — thinner than perhaps we know. Read the comments of University of Manitoba professor Dave Barber.
Sea ice in Canada’s fragile Arctic is melting faster than anyone expected, the lead investigator in Canada’s largest climate-change study yet said Friday — raising the possibility that the Arctic could, in a worst-case scenario, be ice-free in about three years.
We will have a challenge at the IABP to find ice that is suitable for us to deploy our instruments.
Photo: Actually taken a couple weeks back, this was taken as the late snowfall melted from some of the early spring flowers in the yard. Vignetting intentionally applied in photoshop to draw attention to the focus of the image.