Interview: Tracking the Fallout Of the Arctic’s Disappearing Sea Ice

Julienne Stroeve is a research scientist at the University of Colorado’s National Snow and Ice Data Center, where she and several of her colleagues have played a key role in monitoring the steady — and precipitous — decline of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, Stroeve talked about an issue that is just now beginning to become the subject of wider scientific research: What happens when the Arctic Ocean becomes ice-free in summer, an event that an increasing number of scientists think could occur in roughly 20 years? As Stroeve and her colleagues are beginning to document, the loss of what she terms “the air conditioner of the Northern Hemisphere” is already having important repercussions. Their recent study has shown that in areas where summer sea ice already has disappeared, autumn air temperatures have been more than 5 degrees F warmer than the long-term average, in large part because the exposed ocean absorbs far more heat than sea ice. That makes it harder for ice to form in the fall, Stroeve explains, and the consequences ripple out from there.
Click here to read the full interview.