The Polar Express

                                  What’s the Weather Like Up There?

Summer has finally arrived in the Upper Midwest with thermometer readings in the often uncomfortable range. Southwest  U.S. states have seen midday temperatures hover around 100 ° F.  Death Valley, California , known as the hottest place on Earth, and driest place in North America holds the world record of 134° F. recorded  July 10th, 1913. A Death Valley area, aptly named Furnace Creek, holds the record for the highest ground temperature, once again in July, but in 1972 of a sizzling 201° F.

 There are no plants in the area to shade or soak up the sun and the heat bakes the desert surface. Summer sunshine has arrived and July is living up to it's reputation of high heat and humidity. We waited for it and it has arrived!

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Up at the North Pole , the  heat and sunshine are not quite as intense, but still has influence on summer plant growth and melting ice.The famed Midnight Sun shines twenty-four hours a day for a long period during the Northern summer months north of the Arctic Circle. Imagine our attitude if we were subjected to 24 hour sunshine in July and August  with no relief of cool evenings breezes hre in the U.S.!

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In the winter, most of the Arctic is hidden away under snow and ice. Sea ice expands to cover the entire Arctic Ocean, and the arctic lands gain a blanket of snow.
 In the summer, the sea ice retreats to the Central Arctic, opening channels and coastlines to open water.

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  The Arctic influences the weather and climate of the entire Northern Hemisphere, and the cool northern region helps to moderate the climate of the rest of the planet. The Arctic has warmed about twice as fast as the rest of the Northern Hemisphere in recent decades. Summer Arctic sea ice has declined by 40%, and snow is melting earlier in spring on the surrounding land. This dramatic change in the climate system is expected to affect weather patterns well beyond the confines of the Arctic. Some scientists have blamed our extreme fire hazards, hot temperatures and wild weather conditions on the unusual jet streams related to these Arctic conditions.

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The Arctic may be a forbidding place to travel, but its cold weather and unique climate patterns make it an important place for scientists to study.

  

Glaciologists drill through the ice using instruments that  measure what’s going on. This may sound easy, but there are multiple hurdles that must be overcome. Getting there is the first one. These ice shelves are heavily crevassed—landing 
even a small plane may not be an easy task! These changing conditions, whether man-made or normal cycles of nature are changing our world.  The normal “sea of ice” in places, averages 3 km ( 1.9 miles in thickness) and is constantly flowing to open water.

  Scientists have  reached the conclusion that the deep Arctic Ocean has been flowing for the last 35,000 years during the chill of the last ice-age and warmth of our modern time

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 Glacierologists have been noticing changes in an icefield located in the western side of Antarctica known as the Pine Island Glacier. Cracks in the ice field have been recorded by satellites. Recently, a long crack has been noted and photographed.

The crack in the glacier grows.

Pine Island Glacier is a large ice stream flowing west-northwest along the south side of the Hudson Mountains into the Amundsen Sea, Antarctica. Satellite photographs  taken of this glacier  have noted  cracks in the glacier. Recent survey photos have seen the fissure growing. This huge field will soon break away to create a new and separate field of ice.

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 The break has been completed and  a large portion has broken away, becoming a “calf” of the glacier. A new "iceberg" has been born. Icebergs rarely have names, but this one is a good-sized chuck of ice.
   No recent photos of the new "calf" is available, however the newborn iceberg measures about 278 square miles (720 square kilometers) as  seen by  an earth-observing satellite . This enormous slab of ice, about  the size of Chicago is 200 feet thick and now free to roam.  On July 8, 2013, this huge area of the ice shelf broke away from the Pine Island glacier, the longest and fastest flowing glacier in the Antarctic, and is now floating in the Amundsen Sea in the form of a very large iceberg.

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A new iceberg "calf"

June is always a transition period for Arctic sea ice . Arctic ice-cover floats atop a vast ocean . “As the parent Pine Island Glacier retreats and flows out to sea, it develops and drops icebergs as part of a natural and cyclical process”, according to Angelika Humbert  a glaciologist at the Alfred Wegener Institute,. “But, the way the ice breaks, or “calves,” is still somewhat mysterious. Glaciers are constantly in motion,” she said. “Their ice is exposed to permanent tensions and the calving of icebergs is still largely unresearched.”

While the arctic ice appears to be lessening, the new edges of the gigantic ice cover are subject to lesser pressure  and the calving process continues.

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 While we, here in the North American Midwest are craving ice in our beverages, Mother Nature is doing her part in the "Great Up North”.

 Her offerings are larger than we can even imagine while the polar flow continues.