Mark Clifford Serreze | |
---|---|
Born | 1960 |
Alma mater | University of Colorado Boulder |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Geography, Climatology |
Institutions | Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, National Snow and Ice Data Center |
Thesis | Seasonal and interannual variations of sea ice motion in the Canada basin and their relationships with the Arctic atmospheric circulation (1989) |
Doctoral advisor | Roger Barry |
Mark Clifford Serreze (born 1960) is an American geographer and the director (since 2009 [1] ) of the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), a project of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder. In 2019, he was named a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Geography. [2] Serreze is primarily known for his expertise in the Arctic sea ice decline that has occurred over the last few decades due to global warming, a topic about which he has expressed serious concern. [3] He has authored over 150 peer-reviewed publications.
Serreze grew up in Maine, and credits its frequent snowy weather as an inspiration for his interest in studying ice. [4] He received his PhD from the University of Colorado Boulder in 1989. [1]
In 2007, Serreze said that given the increasingly rapid rate at which Arctic ice has been melting, he thought it was "very reasonable" to expect the Arctic to be ice-free by 2030. He also blamed the decline primarily on anthropogenic global warming. [5] Serreze became well known in 2008 when he described the state of Arctic sea ice as being in a "death spiral", and said it could disappear in the summers within several decades. [6] Also that year, when contacted by the Associated Press, Serreze described the state of Arctic sea ice as being at a "tipping point," after which sea ice will plummet rapidly and added that 2007's then-record low sea ice levels were due in part to wind currents and other weather conditions as well as global warming. [7]
In regards to Antarctic sea ice extent, Serreze noted in an interview 2012 that it has been known for years that Arctic sea ice vanishes first, and thus it is not a surprise that observations do not show big reductions and Antarctic sea ice doesn't disprove global warming. [8]
Mark Serreze is a keyboardist, singer, and songwriter for the rock band The Hobbled Neurons, which released the album "Einstein's Bender" in 2023. [9]
In 2006 he was featured in the Discovery Channel documentary Global Warming: What You Need to Know . [1]
The Arctic is a polar region located at the northernmost part of Earth. The Arctic region consists of the Arctic Ocean, adjacent seas, and parts of Canada, Danish Realm (Greenland), northern Finland, northern Iceland, northern Norway, Russia, northernmost Sweden and the United States (Alaska). Land within the Arctic region has seasonally varying snow and ice cover, with predominantly treeless permafrost under the tundra. Arctic seas contain seasonal sea ice in many places.
The cryosphere is an all-encompassing term for the portions of Earth's surface where water is in solid form, including sea ice, lake ice, river ice, snow cover, glaciers, ice caps, ice sheets, and frozen ground. Thus, there is a wide overlap with the hydrosphere. The cryosphere is an integral part of the global climate system with important linkages and feedbacks generated through its influence on surface energy and moisture fluxes, clouds, precipitation, hydrology, atmospheric and oceanic circulation.
The climate of Antarctica is the coldest on Earth. The continent is also extremely dry, averaging 166 mm (6.5 in) of precipitation per year. Snow rarely melts on most parts of the continent, and, after being compressed, becomes the glacier ice that makes up the ice sheet. Weather fronts rarely penetrate far into the continent, because of the katabatic winds. Most of Antarctica has an ice-cap climate with extremely cold and dry weather.
Sea ice arises as seawater freezes. Because ice is less dense than water, it floats on the ocean's surface. Sea ice covers about 7% of the Earth's surface and about 12% of the world's oceans. Much of the world's sea ice is enclosed within the polar ice packs in the Earth's polar regions: the Arctic ice pack of the Arctic Ocean and the Antarctic ice pack of the Southern Ocean. Polar packs undergo a significant yearly cycling in surface extent, a natural process upon which depends the Arctic ecology, including the ocean's ecosystems. Due to the action of winds, currents and temperature fluctuations, sea ice is very dynamic, leading to a wide variety of ice types and features. Sea ice may be contrasted with icebergs, which are chunks of ice shelves or glaciers that calve into the ocean. Depending on location, sea ice expanses may also incorporate icebergs.
An ice shelf is a large floating platform of ice that forms where a glacier or ice sheet flows down to a coastline and onto the ocean surface. Ice shelves are found in Antarctica and the Arctic. The boundary between the floating ice shelf and the anchor ice that feeds it is the grounding line. The thickness of ice shelves can range from about 100 m (330 ft) to 1,000 m (3,300 ft). The world's largest ice shelves are the Ross Ice Shelf and the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf in Antarctica. When a large piece of an ice shelf breaks off, this can lead to the formation of an iceberg. This process is also called ice calving.
The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) is a United States information and referral center in support of polar and cryospheric research. NSIDC archives and distributes digital and analog snow and ice data and also maintains information about snow cover, avalanches, glaciers, ice sheets, freshwater ice, sea ice, ground ice, permafrost, atmospheric ice, paleoglaciology, and ice cores.
A polar ice cap or polar cap is a high-latitude region of a planet, dwarf planet, or natural satellite that is covered in ice.
In glaciology, an ice cap is a mass of ice that covers less than 50,000 km2 (19,000 sq mi) of land area. Larger ice masses covering more than 50,000 km2 (19,000 sq mi) are termed ice sheets.
Thwaites Glacier is an unusually broad and vast Antarctic glacier located east of Mount Murphy, on the Walgreen Coast of Marie Byrd Land. It was initially sighted by polar researchers in 1940, mapped in 1959–1966 and officially named in 1967, after the late American glaciologist Fredrik T. Thwaites. The glacier flows into Pine Island Bay, part of the Amundsen Sea, at surface speeds which exceed 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) per year near its grounding line. Its fastest-flowing grounded ice is centered between 50 and 100 kilometres east of Mount Murphy. Like many other parts of the cryosphere, it has been adversely affected by climate change, and provides one of the more notable examples of the retreat of glaciers since 1850.
Major environmental issues caused by contemporary climate change in the Arctic region range from the well-known, such as the loss of sea ice or melting of the Greenland ice sheet, to more obscure, but deeply significant issues, such as permafrost thaw, as well as related social consequences for locals and the geopolitical ramifications of these changes. The Arctic is likely to be especially affected by climate change because of the high projected rate of regional warming and associated impacts. Temperature projections for the Arctic region were assessed in 2007: These suggested already averaged warming of about 2 °C to 9 °C by the year 2100. The range reflects different projections made by different climate models, run with different forcing scenarios. Radiative forcing is a measure of the effect of natural and human activities on the climate. Different forcing scenarios reflect things such as different projections of future human greenhouse gas emissions.
The climate of the Arctic is characterized by long, cold winters and short, cool summers. There is a large amount of variability in climate across the Arctic, but all regions experience extremes of solar radiation in both summer and winter. Some parts of the Arctic are covered by ice year-round, and nearly all parts of the Arctic experience long periods with some form of ice on the surface.
The Arctic Ocean is the smallest and shallowest of the world's five major oceans. It spans an area of approximately 14,060,000 km2 (5,430,000 sq mi) and is known as one of the coldest of oceans. The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) recognizes it as an ocean, although some oceanographers call it the Arctic Mediterranean Sea. It has also been described as an estuary of the Atlantic Ocean. It is also seen as the northernmost part of the all-encompassing World Ocean.
Mark Dyurgerov was an internationally known glaciologist and Fellow of the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR) of the University of Colorado at Boulder. He was born in Moscow, Russia; both of his parents were engineers, and his mother was also a Russian poet.
The Beaufort Gyre is one of the two major ocean currents in the Arctic Ocean. It is roughly located north of the Alaskan and Canadian coast. In the past, Arctic sea-ice would circulate in the Beaufort gyre up to several years, leading to the formation of very thick multi-year sea-ice. Due to warming temperatures in the Arctic, the gyre has lost an extensive amount of ice, practically turning what used to be a nursery for sea-ice to mature and grow into the thickest and oldest ice of the Arctic Ocean into a "graveyard" for older ice.
Measurement of sea ice is important for safety of navigation and for monitoring the environment, particularly the climate. Sea ice extent interacts with large climate patterns such as the North Atlantic oscillation and Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, to name just two, and influences climate in the rest of the globe.
Sea ice in the Arctic region has declined in recent decades in area and volume due to climate change. It has been melting more in summer than it refreezes in winter. Global warming, caused by greenhouse gas forcing is responsible for the decline in Arctic sea ice. The decline of sea ice in the Arctic has been accelerating during the early twenty‐first century, with a decline rate of 4.7% per decade. It is also thought that summertime sea ice will cease to exist sometime during the 21st century.
The Arctic ice pack is the sea ice cover of the Arctic Ocean and its vicinity. The Arctic ice pack undergoes a regular seasonal cycle in which ice melts in spring and summer, reaches a minimum around mid-September, then increases during fall and winter. Summer ice cover in the Arctic is about 50% of winter cover. Some of the ice survives from one year to the next. Currently, 28% of Arctic basin sea ice is multi-year ice, thicker than seasonal ice: up to 3–4 m (9.8–13.1 ft) thick over large areas, with ridges up to 20 m (65.6 ft) thick. Besides the regular seasonal cycle there has been an underlying trend of declining sea ice in the Arctic in recent decades as well.
Konrad "Koni" Steffen was a Swiss glaciologist, known for his research into the impact of global warming on the Arctic.
Antarctic sea ice is the sea ice of the Southern Ocean. It extends from the far north in the winter and retreats to almost the coastline every summer. Sea ice is frozen seawater that is usually less than a few meters thick. This is the opposite of ice shelves, which are formed by glaciers; they float in the sea, and are up to a kilometre thick. There are two subdivisions of sea ice: fast ice, which are attached to land; and ice floes, which are not.
Marika Holland is a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research known for her work on modeling sea ice and its role in the global climate.