Tricky Sea Ice Predictions Call for Scientists to Open Their Data
18.06.2010 - Water & Oceans, Ice & Snow, Arctic
As Arctic sea ice levels reach record lows this month, a new report called Sea Ice Outlook calls for caution in over-interpreting a few weeks’ worth of data from the Arctic. The report compares a dozen teams’ predictions on disappearing sea ice by the end of the warm season in September.
Although this year began with more ice than anticipated, sea ice levels have plummeted through May and into June. However, predicting the final amount of ice left at the end of the melt season remains difficult to determine.
In 2007, the rapid decline of sea ice in the Arctic drew worldwide attention. In the past two years, however, the extent of sea ice in the Arctic has shown some signs of recovery, the report shows. This series of events, which underscored the year-to-year variability of the measurement, has made researchers cautious about describing events in the Arctic.
All but one of the predictions from the ‘Sea Ice Outlook’ predict the minimum coverage of sea ice to fall between 4.2 and 5.7 million km2 (1.6 and 2.2 million square miles). This group predicts just a million km2 will remain, which would easily break the 2007 record minimum of 4.3 million km2. In 2009, the sea ice minimum was 5.3 million km2.
