Melting Sea Ice in the Arctic Ocean

Ice in the Arctic Ocean is melting faster than climate models have predicted. A recent article from The Economist looks at the causes. Included is this map comparing average and recent sea ice extents.

The article also links to an animation that shows the opening up of potential new shipping routes - also shown on the map above. Here is a still frame.

Some interesting notes from the article:

Melting ice creates a "feedback loop" where there is more water and less ice. Water absorbs light and heat, while ice reflects it. More water and less ice means more heat is retained.

Melting ice will enable the extraction of more fossil fuel from the area, creating another feedback loop in which more greenhouse gas emissions will be created.

The melting of the ocean ice will do little to raise the sea level, however eventually more ice will melt off of Greenland and other land areas and that will cause a sea level rise.

Map of the Week - Wear a Helmet!

NASA's defunct Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite is expected to fall back to earth on Friday, give or take a day. They don't know where but based on the satellite's orbit they've narrowed it down to somewhere between 57 degrees north and 57 degrees south latitude, in other words somewhere between northern Canada and the southern tip of South America - where just about everyone lives. The dark areas on the map below could get hit with debris.

If you're in Antarctica, you have nothing to fear, except for the fact that your continent has gotten huge on this map projection. For the rest of us there's a 1 in 3,200 that someone in this zone will get hit. The U.S. Strategic Command at Vandenberg Air Force Base will provide updates as the time gets closer. In the meantime watch for falling objects.

Map of the Week #95 - The Inglehart Values Map

The Inglehart Values Map visualizes the strong correlation of values in different cultures. Countries are described using two dimensions; secular-rational vs. traditional values and self-expression vs survival values. Countries that are geographically or culturally close cluster in different areas on the chart. A more detailed description is available by clicking below.

MOTW #72

This is a "map" of geographic knowledge compiled by Dr Andre Skupin at San Diego State University. I don't really understand it much but it's an interesting concept anyway. His own description:
"Visualization of the geographic knowledge domain based on more then 22,000 conference abstracts submitted to the Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers (1993-2002). Landscape features express the degree of topical focus, with elevated areas corresponding to more well-defined, topical regions and low-lying areas corresponding to a mingling of various topics. Dominant terms are used as labels for topical regions."