Video is here.
A series of storms off the northern coast of Alaska and down to the northern reaches of Canada, have expedited the fracturing of ice covering the Beaufort Sea.
“An event unprecedented in human history is today, this very moment, transpiring in the Arctic Ocean,” writes Paul Beckwith, PhD student with the laboratory for paleoclimatology and climatology at the University of Ottawa, in a March 30 blog post.
Beckwith is also a part-time climatology and meteorology professor, whose thesis topic is “Abrupt climate change in the past and present.”
Walt Meier of the National Snow & Ice Data Center (NSIDC) is quoted in an April 1 National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) article: “A fracturing event in this area is not unusual ... Point Barrow can act like a ‘pin point’ where the ice catches and fractures to the north and east.”
But, notes NASA, “While fracturing events are common, few events sprawl across such a large area or produce cracks as long and wide as those seen here.”
Beckwith declares, “For the record—I do not think that any sea ice will survive this summer.”
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