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Climate impacts: Race to the Arctic

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August 6, 2009: Aboard the Arctic Sunrise, Greenland



What is Fish wearing on board the Arctic Sunrise off the coast of Greenland?

Not much it seems as it's quite balmy up near the Arctic Circle.

Fish fields this question and others from Chinese Greenpeace fans below.

So just how cold is it in the Arctic? What’s the temperature range between the coldest and warmest times?


Fish: There’s an instrument shelter on the deck of the ship we’re sailing on.

The mercury thermometer inside doesn’t get direct sunlight.

I’ve kept a constant watch on it for a while, during which it’s shown temperatures in the range of between about four and twelve degrees Celsius.

There’s also another alcohol thermometer hanging outside at the stern; the temperature readings it gives are noticeably two to four degrees higher than the one in the instrument shelter, which is mostly because it’s showing the effect of variations in temperature due to sunlight.

There’s no separate day and night here at the moment and the diurnal range isn’t particularly large.

For the people working on the ship what affects how cold you get is how strong the wind is.

During the month or more I’ve been on board, apart from one day where we had sleet, the rest of the time it’s basically been sunny and very warm.

I’ve seen the alcohol thermometer showing 14 degrees or so on more than one occasion.

Can you see the aurora borealis at this time of year?


Fish: It’s summer in the Arctic at the moment and we’ve got the sun up in the sky 24 hours a day.

It’s what they call the White Nights and it takes place for almost six months of every year between April and October.

There’s no chance of seeing the aurora during this half of the year because the sun’s too bright. It’s been quite a shame not to have seen it.

In this shot I’ve deliberately set the light-dark contrast high which lets you get a clearer sense of what the surface of a glacier looks like.

 

Could you tell me if that’s a covering of snow down by your feet (i.e. the surface of the ice)? Is there any difference with how it is when things ice over in North China?


Fish: In the area we’re working in (the west coast of Greenland) I’ve pretty much never seen snow settled either on land or the glaciers.

There are a very few spots on the Petermann glacier where you can see patches which resemble snow covering, like the one I spent ages looking for so I could write ‘I Care’ in the snow (Icare is the name of Greenpeace China's Chinese language public engagement climate campaig). but the ‘snow’ is really more like ice fragments and has probably been there for many months or even much longer.

The surface of the ice on the glacier isn’t in the slightest bit slippery because a glacier is a body of ice formed by the accumulation of snow piling up and freezing over an extremely long period of years.

The surface of the ice retains a pattern similar to fallen snow which has a much higher friction coefficient than the ice on a frozen river has, so even if it’s continually melting the surface never becomes very smooth.

Most of the ice in North China is formed directly from the freezing of water so it keeps the smoothness of the water surface, and that’s where the main difference comes from.

Cracks in the Petermann glacier

The melting of the ice in the Arctic Ocean won’t cause a rise in sea level, will it?

 
Fish: In theory it won’t.


The ice in the Arctic Ocean forms sea ice, the bulk of which is below the surface of the sea already.

There’s only about 10 percent of it by volume above the surface of the sea, and since when ice melts into water it loses volume that will cancel out any effect of making the sea level rise.

But if the Arctic Ocean does melt, the snow lying on top of the sea ice is fresh water, and if that melts it’s going to put a lot of extra fresh water into the ocean.

Even more important, if there’s a lot of melting of the Arctic sea ice that would mean that the glaciers in places like Greenland and Canada to the south would have already seen severe melting too.

Scientists have calculated that if just the ice sheet over Greenland alone were to melt it would lead to a global rise in sea level of around 7.4 metres.

After the glaciers melt can they freeze again or not? Surely what melts in summer will freeze again come winter?


Fish: Well, an answer to that starts with talking about the tips of the glaciers.

For example we carried out measurements and recorded observations on the massive icebergs, some dozens or even more than a 100 kilometres square, where the Petermann Glacier enters the sea.

After they break off from the main body of the glacier you won’t get a similar body of ice forming again in the same place come winter.

The glaciers that are melting and having big chunks of ice break off were formed from snow falling over thousands, tens of thousands of years or even more over land and accumulating to form these bodies of freshwater ice.

Looking at the figures provided by scientific research, the overall rate at which the ice sheet over Greenland is melting had by the 1990's exceeded the rate of snow fall, and the trend is clearly for that to get worse.

So the situation we have now is that there’s a massive amount of melting of the glaciers in summer that’s far in excess of the replacement by winter snow fall.

I’d like to see some pictures of penguins!


Fish: This would actually be a bit tricky because there’s no penguins in the Arctic!


Tell you what, I’ll post a picture of some of a polar bear, then next time I make it down to the Antarctic I’ll add a picture of some penguins, but you have to promise that when I’m down there you don’t ask me for pictures of polar bears!!!

 

 

July 22, 2009: The Petermann Glacier, Greenland




Greenpeace is in the Arctic to document the unprecedented melting of the ice.

These are warning signs that climate change is moving faster.

And this is vital evidence that we have to act now to stop climate change.

For the past two weeks, scientists and crew from the Arctic Sunrise have been busy gathering data, collecting samples and setting up cameras to record the break-up of the Petermann glacier, one of Greenland's largest.

A large crack has been forming for the past few years, and a massive piece of the glacier is expected to break off soon.

50 cubic meters per second


At 82 degrees North, far from any inhabited area, the impact we have on our environment is sadly evident.

The data gathered so far by the on-board scientists is grim.

Some 27 km away from the sea, on the glacier, a large river has formed.

The scientists estimate it runs at 50 cubic meters per second – you could fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool in less than a minute at that rate.

This river feeds a large and deep melting whirlpool.

Measurements there have shown that at around 60 m depth, the salinity of the water rises - indicating that warm ocean currents from further south in the Atlantic are accelerating the ice melt at a rate much faster than on the surface.



Last year, a 37 km square ice island broke off. This year, the far end of the glacier has already broken away, but much more is expected.

When this new ice island escapes and slips out to sea, it means that more of the 'grounded' or land-based part of the glacier could slip into the sea water and become part of the floating tongue - the end of the glacier that lies on the sea.

This has implications for both global sea level rise, as well for the Greenland ice sheet itself, best explained by the 'champagne cork' analogy– if the deterioration of Greenland's glaciers continues, it could open the way for a larger release of frozen fresh water, from the vast ice sheet that covers most of Greenland, into the ocean – thereby contributing to a major rise in sea levels.

Action, not words


World leaders have committed to limit global temperature rise below 2 degrees at the recent G8 meeting, but have not indicated how we will achieve this.

Strong emission cuts are needed if we want to prevent runaway global warming.

  

 

 

 

Arctic melt from Greenpeace China on Vimeo.

 

 

7 July, 2009

We have left the Petermann Glacier and are now heading north to the ice bridge at latitude 82 degrees.

This year the sea started to freeze much further north than last year.

Yesterday, I worked until very late and so I slept very deeply. I slept so deeply that missed the sight of the polar bears.

Let me share one of them with you here:


 

 

 

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2 July, 2009

The Arctic Sunrise is carrying scientists, photographers, reporters, explorers and people like me, Greenpeace workers.

We have been travelling full steam ahead north to the Petermann Glacier.

This journey is a race against time. The ice bridge connecting the glacier is expected to crack up at any time and we wanted to get there to take footage before that happened.

The piece of ice that is expected to break off in the coming weeks is 100 square km.

I was sitting in the cabin looking at the photos taken over the past couple of days when there was huge bang and the whole ship just shook.

My first reaction was that, oh my God, the Arctic Sunrise will sink like the Titanic!

Looking out of the porthole I saw a giant piece of ice next to the ship. I grabbed my jacket and rushed up on deck.

By then the ship was slowly gliding away and the glacier receeding into the distance. Only 10 percent of an iceberg is visible about the water.

We reached the Petermann glacier sooner than expected. There was no broken sea ice to block our way.

We are not sure why the sea ice in the Nares Strait never 'consolidated' last winter - the first time in 32 years of keeping records. That means the ice stayed thin.

The glacier is huge! It's 16km wide. It was so big that our photographer, Nick, said:"What a huge guy! How on earth am I going to capture it, eh!?"

Fish, Greenpeace China campaigner, on board the Arctic Sunrise.

 

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The Arctic Sunrise is scouting the Arctic looking for evidence of climate change.


29 June, 2009

Sisimiut, Greenland — Our ship, The Arctic Sunrise is currently heading north along the west coast of Greenland in a race against time.

Its destination is the disintegrating Petermann Glacier, but to reach the glacier our ship must pass through the Nares Strait, which could be flooded with dangerous sea ice at any moment.
 
At the top of the Nares Strait is an ice bridge, which holds back the Arctic Sea ice. Should the ice bridge break, and it could do so at any time, a deluge of sea ice will make progress further north impossible.

The ship is heading to the glacier to bear witness to the accelerating polar melt, and to support the work of a team of independent scientists, who are researching why climate change is melting the ice faster than expected.

The voyage to the Petermann Glacier is the first stage of a four leg tour during which we will:

•    Document the collapse of one of the world's largest glaciers.

•    Investigate how changing ocean currents could be accelerating Greenland's melt.

•    Voyage to the place where the polar bears will make their last stand.

•    Sail in to the retreating ice edge to witness first hand the vanishing sea ice. 

This expedition will take us further north than any Greenpeace ship has ever sailed before.

On board is Greenpeace China’s public engagement campaigner, Yu Xin, who we all know as Fish.



Greenpeace China public engagement campaigner Fish in front of the Arctic Sunrise.

He sent us a brief update a few days ago on how he felt just before he boarded the Arctic Sunrise:

"Every Greenpeace boat has its own special imposing manner; they are all working to save the environment.  When I saw the Arctic Sunrise appear in front of my eyes I was so excited that I wanted to cry out."

If the ship succeeds in reaching the Petermann Glacier, which is one of Greenland’s largest and most northerly glaciers, the Arctic Sunrise team will document its ongoing disintegration.

Satellite images show that an expanse larger than New York’s Manhattan island is ready to break off from Petermann Glacier, and both the crew and scientists intend to be there to document this significant event.

The melting arctic is just one of the undeniable signs that our climate is changing, and that the change is starting to run out of control.

The disappearance of the sea ice will destroy the entire arctic eco-system which depends on it, while the melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet threatens to raise sea levels around the world by 7 meters.

That would be the start of catastrophic climate change, triggering mass starvation, mass extinction and mass migration. 

The climate catastrophe could literally redraw the map of the world.

Greenpeace is in the Arctic to make sure that this warning sign cannot be ignored.

At the end of this year world leaders must meet at the climate summit in Copenhagen to agree a deal to avert catastrophic climate change.

It's essential that the treaty delivers the big emission cuts, forest protection and funding needed to help the developing world to deal with climate change.

Keep coming back to see Fish's updates on the Arctic expedition.

Fish's updates will also be posted on our Facebook page (why don't you fan us?).

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