The most unlikely ice that the Arctic is melting, too?
polar bear may lose habitat forever
In the last ice area above Ellesmere Island (Ellesmere Island) in Canada, an inter-ice lake is expanding. Since May 2020, the gaps in the ice have been open for nearly two weeks due to the powerful Arctic anticyclone. (Photo source: NASA EOSDIS Worldview)
A new study shows that in May 2020, a huge hole appeared in the oldest and thickest ice layer in the Arctic. At first, scientists believed that the ice in this area was the most stable ice layer in the Arctic, but this huge rift marked that the ancient ice layer was also very fragile in the face of melting.
This ice lake with open water is the first time in history to be found in the north of Ellesmere Island. But in an August report on large caves in the ice, published in Geophysical Research Letters, researchers inferred from old data from satellite that similar ice lakes may have appeared in 1988 and 2004.
"On the northern Elsmere Island, it's hard to remove or melt the ice here because they're thick and quite a lot of it," Kent Moore, an Arctic researcher at the University of Toronto at Mississauga and lead author of the study, said in a statement. "So we generally haven't seen the ice lake formed in this area before." The central Elsmere Island is cold all year round, covered by huge ice layers, without vegetation and soil. (Photo source: Baidu)
Changes in Arctic
Sea ice on the northern coast of Elsmere Island is usually more than 13 feet (4 meters) thick, with an average age of 5 years. But it turns out that the "last ice zone" of the Arctic has become very fragile in the rapid warming of the northern latitudes. A July 2021 study found that Wandel Sea, or the eastern region called the "last ice zone", lost half of its ice covering in the summer of 2020. Another study in 2021 showed that ice arches that act as linking stable sea ice with Greenland (Greenland) formed later, and the melting speed is also accelerating year by year.
Currently, researchers have shown that by the end of this century, the ice in the final ice area may melt every summer, which will mean the end for animals that rely on sea ice all year round, such as polar bears.
Ice Lake is another bad sign for the final ice area. When storms appear in the Arctic and winds move ice, sea ice creates cracks, and these cracks are the lake between the ice. In May 2020, a strong storm was generated in the northern part of Elsmere Island, and satellite images showed that on May 14, a long and narrow crack, or a passage, formed here. By May 15, the narrow passage had become an oval interglacial lake, about 62 miles (100 kilometers) long and 18.6 miles (30 kilometers) wide. On May 26, the ice lake quickly closed.
(Photo source: Bing)
Open waters
Researchers reviewed the relatively old satellite data set that recorded sea ice concentrations. They found that this area is likely to have had a Bing Lake in May 1988, but because the satellite images at that time were not clear enough, they could not distinguish the shape or size of the opening of the Bing Lake. The second interglare lake may have appeared in May 2004, with winds generated in 2004 stronger than those in 1988 or 2020, but the interglare lake that appeared in 2004 was smaller than those in 2020. “This may be due to the thinner ice since 2004,” they wrote. “This means weaker winds will produce wider openings.”
(source: Bing)
“The formation of interglare lakes in this area is very interesting,” David Babb, a sea ice researcher at the University of Manitoba in Canada, who was not involved in the study, said in a statement. “It’s somewhat like a crack in the protective cover of the hard ice cap that has been around here.So what happened really, really highlights the changes that are happening in the Arctic. ”
(Photo source: Bing)
Moore said that in the future, as the last ice zones of the Arctic melt, the interglacial lakes may appear more frequently. In the short term, these open areas may become oasis of life: the sunlight directly contacts the seawater, allowing more algae to perform photosynthesis , which also attracts fish and crustaceans. Added that these animals in turn attract seabirds, seals and polar bears. But this outbreak of life is only temporary.
"In the long run, as the ice melts and the ice gradually moves away from the coast, creatures like walrus and seabirds will lose the opportunity to contact the ice, and we will lose the benefits that come with these," Moore said. "And eventually, the temperature will continue to rise so that the species cannot survive. ”
BY: Stephanie Pappash
FY: Faeton
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