JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – It is stunningly warm at the North Pole this winter as temperatures hit freezing in the dead of winter.
The Bering Sea lost half its sea ice in roughly two weeks. The result is less coverage than ever before during the satellite era on any date between mid-January and early May according to University of Alaska climate researcher Brain Brettschneider.
Recommended Videos
While much of Europe shivers in freezing cold, the extended Arctic heatwave continues. The uneven heating seen around the hemisphere is indicative increasing erratic weather patterns in a warming planet.
Those swings are felt here in Jacksonville. We just came off a weekend of record temperatures hitting 86 on February 25th bringing the monthly temperature 9.8º above average.
And while January had 12 freezes in Jacksonville during the coldest January since 2010, temperatures have been more than 27°F warmer than average over eastern Greenland and the central Arctic according to The National Snow and Ice Data Center.
Warm temperatures in the Arctic has implications for sea ice on the heels of last year's record low winter ice pack.
Ice is set to eclipse record low levels beyond the western edge of Alaska's Bering Sea.
In 2017 an ice gap larger than Texas set a record low of about 14.42 million square kilometers on March 7 in the Arctic circle. Ice coverage was more than a million square kilometers below average.
This year remains below that level, but there’s still plenty of time for the ice to continue growing and exceed 2017’s maximum which didn't come til March 7 last year.
The Arctic Ocean is blanketed by sea ice that expands during the frigid Arctic winter, reaching a maximum extent in March. Sea ice retreats during the summer, reaching its minimum extent in September.
The Arctic ice cover plays an important role in maintaining the Earth’s temperature—the shiny white ice reflects light and heat that the ocean would otherwise absorb, keeping the Northern Hemisphere cool.