That New Kind Of Ice, Which Melts at -8C

ScreenHunter_485 May. 23 21.10

ScreenHunter_486 May. 23 21.11

Twitter / climatebrad: Ah, crap. Russia abandons North …

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20 Responses to That New Kind Of Ice, Which Melts at -8C

  1. tckev says:

    Seems more like the Russian have had bad planning and poor siting of their Arctic ice floe station…
    http://barentsobserver.com/en/arctic/2013/05/floating-research-station-need-evacuation-23-05

  2. F. Guimaraes says:

    looks more like -8°C than -2°C:
    NPEO PAWS Buoy 975420 latest weather data
    05/23/1500Z 89.352°N 52.335°W -7.7°C 1007.4mb 329° 6.0m/s
    Recent Atmospheric Record

    NPEO PAWS Buoy 819920 latest weather data
    05/23/1500Z 88.257°N 32.009°W -8.7°C 1009.6mb 130° 6.0m/s
    Recent Atmospheric Record

    EUMETNET ICEB Buoy 409520 latest weather data
    05/23/1455Z 84.771°N 59.615°W -6.8°C 1016.2mb

  3. Traitor In Chief says:

    Maybe Russian ice is different! You know, lower quality? Only good to -10C? 🙂

  4. hannuko says:

    Well, actually the ice *can* disappear quite quickly by sublimation with temperatures well below 0C. It needs just dry air and some wind.

    Propably not the case here, but just a thing to remember.

  5. Bloke down the pub says:

    Everything going to and from the Russian station goes by air. It doesn’t need the ice to melt to threaten the station’s existence, only for a crack to appear on the runway.

  6. Billy Liar says:

    Ice Station 40 was transported to its location by the Russian icebreaker Rossiya.

    The icebreaker had to sail all around the North Pole before finding an ice floe solid enough to hold the station. None of the three floes that had been pre-evaluated from land as possible objects were considered safe enough.

    So, having smashed up all the ice in the vicinity in order to find a place to put the camp they’re now surprised it’s broken up again?

    http://barentsobserver.com/en/arctic/hard-find-ice-floating-research-station-10-10

  7. No Substitute for Victory says:

    The Russians Have been building bases on ice flows for 60 years or longer and they have been melting for just as long. These research aka spy stations were built and supplied by ski equipped fixed wing short landing and take off cargo planes. Since these ice stations were well beyond the reach of helicopters the Russians believed that they were invulnerable from the prying eyes of the CIA. The Russians were wrong.

    In about 1958 after the Russians abandoned a melting ice flow, the US parachuted two men onto an abandoned Russian ice station. They proceeded to collect Russian radio equipment and documents including code books that the Russians neglected to burn or deep six thinking that there was no way that we could access this equipment. Then like 007 in the flick Thunderball a heavily modified B17 called a Sky Hook flew over and snatched the purloined Russian equipment and the two Americans off the ice and winced them into the bomb bay of the old Flying Fort. It seems that ice flows have been melting for as long as there’s been ice flows.

  8. No Substitute for Victory says:

    The Russians have been building and then abandoning scientific aka military research stations long before Obama was born. In fact we parachuted a couple of Air Force types onto one of these shrinking ice flows back in 1959 I think it was. The Russians didn’t think that a fixed wing aircraft could land and takeoff on this shrinking ice flow and they were right. But two service members parachuted onto the ice flow, scooped up Russian radio equipment, papers, and code booke that had been left behind and then they were scooped up along with the Russian equipment the same way 007 was plucked from the ground

  9. snafu says:

    It’s a shame these people don’t do any research before sprouting BS; “because ice is disappearing

    When the station was first placed on the ice, the ice thickness was ~1.4m. Current ice thickness is ~2.2m and has been increasing since mid December!

    http://www.aari.ru/resources/d0014/np40/default.asp?lang=0

    • Billy Liar says:

      That’s a fascinating site. It is amazing that despite having drifted 260 nm to the south the ice has continued to thicken.

      According to the US Navy arctic sea ice thickness model the floating ice station should be in an area where the ice thickness is 3.5-4m. Something is a bit off.

      http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/hycomARC/navo/arcticict_nowcast_anim30d.gif

      Steven was right about the temperature; apart from a brief spike on 22 May up to -2C, it’s been between -5 and -10C for the last 4 days and below -10C since last October.

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