1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:04,000 On Sept. 15, 2019, Arctic sea ice reached its second-lowest minimum extent on record. 2 00:00:04,000 --> 00:00:08,000 3 00:00:08,000 --> 00:00:12,000 The Arctic is one of the most rapidly changing regions on the planet, 4 00:00:12,000 --> 00:00:16,000 and it's warming about two to three times faster 5 00:00:16,000 --> 00:00:20,000 than the rest of the globe. There is a lot going on in the Arctic. 6 00:00:20,000 --> 00:00:24,000 There are some really significant wildfires happening right now -- many of them 7 00:00:24,000 --> 00:00:28,000 in Siberia -- and we're seeing tremendous amount of carbon emissions in the region. 8 00:00:28,000 --> 00:00:32,000 Each year, essentially, we keep seeing new record high temperatures being set 9 00:00:32,000 --> 00:00:36,000 and new record low sea ice extents. There's been this kind of long-term 10 00:00:36,000 --> 00:00:40,000 decline in the sea ice extent over the last four decades. Sea ice is 11 00:00:40,000 --> 00:00:44,000 this really dynamic type of ice, it's the ice that forms and 12 00:00:44,000 --> 00:00:48,000 melts in the Arctic Ocean, so you get new ice forming and melting 13 00:00:48,000 --> 00:00:52,000 each year. 14 00:00:52,000 --> 00:00:56,000 we've been able to actually use satellites to look at the area of 15 00:00:56,000 --> 00:01:00,000 the ice on the Arctic Ocean, and one of the things we're noticing from that is 16 00:01:00,000 --> 00:01:04,000 when we get to the summer each year, you get this minimum 17 00:01:04,000 --> 00:01:08,000 of sea ice. So it covers the least area of the Arctic Ocean. 18 00:01:08,000 --> 00:01:12,000 What we're seeing is that that minimum is getting increasingly 19 00:01:12,000 --> 00:01:16,000 less over the last four decades, and we are losing a large amount 20 00:01:16,000 --> 00:01:20,000 of sea ice every year, if you look at the trends. 21 00:01:20,000 --> 00:01:24,000 22 00:01:24,000 --> 00:01:28,000 23 00:01:28,000 --> 00:01:32,000 And what we saw this year, there's kind of been a 24 00:01:32,000 --> 00:01:36,000 heatwave essentially in the Arctic. So 25 00:01:36,000 --> 00:01:40,000 temperatures at the North Pole were about 10 to 15 degrees Fahrenheit 26 00:01:40,000 --> 00:01:44,000 higher than 27 00:01:44,000 --> 00:01:48,000 for that time of year. 28 00:01:48,000 --> 00:01:52,000 Something that I kind of think about every year now whenever the sea ice minimum happens is that the 13 lowest 29 00:01:52,000 --> 00:01:56,000 sea ice extents on record have occurred in the past 13 years since 2007. 30 00:01:56,000 --> 00:02:00,000 31 00:02:00,000 --> 00:02:04,000 Sea ice is kind of this big protective blanket of bright ice that sits on the 32 00:02:04,000 --> 00:02:08,000 Arctic Ocean, and it reflects the Sun's heat. It insulates the 33 00:02:08,000 --> 00:02:12,000 cool atmosphere from the warmer ocean, and if you 34 00:02:12,000 --> 00:02:16,000 start melting away that sea ice, you're going to warm the atmosphere more, and it's 35 00:02:16,000 --> 00:02:20,000 going to affect temperature, winds, and weather, not just in the Arctic, but globally as well. 36 00:02:20,000 --> 00:02:24,000 The way I kind of think about it is if you're taking 37 00:02:24,000 --> 00:02:28,000 away this big protective blanket from the Arctic, you're essentially doing 38 00:02:28,000 --> 00:02:32,000 a massive science experiment almost on the planet, 39 00:02:32,000 --> 00:02:36,000 and it's not necessarily an experiment that I would want to 40 00:02:36,000 --> 00:02:40,000 see the results of. 41 00:02:40,000 --> 00:02:44,000 We are seeing more melt in the Arctic, we 42 00:02:44,000 --> 00:02:48,000 are seeing earlier melt and later freeze up, 43 00:02:48,000 --> 00:02:52,000 we're combining those with the models that can predict what's going to happen in the future, 44 00:02:52,000 --> 00:02:56,000 and seeing that perhaps the Arctic is going to become sea ice-free sooner than we 45 00:02:56,000 --> 00:03:00,000 initially thought. 46 00:03:00,000 --> 00:03:04,000 There's a lot of talk for example about the kind of the temperatures in 47 00:03:04,000 --> 00:03:08,000 Siberia around permafrost melting and fires in Siberia, 48 00:03:08,000 --> 00:03:12,000 and that's really unusual and that's because it was so much warmer 49 00:03:12,000 --> 00:03:16,000 this year than it has been in on average the last 40 years. 50 00:03:16,000 --> 00:03:20,000 51 00:03:20,000 --> 00:03:24,000 Temperatures in the Arctic are increasing three times as much as elsewhere in the world, 52 00:03:24,000 --> 00:03:28,000 so temperature definitely can play a role in the 53 00:03:28,000 --> 00:03:32,000 wildfires that we're seeing there. This year especially has been significant 54 00:03:32,000 --> 00:03:36,000 for Siberia in the Russian Arctic, where 55 00:03:36,000 --> 00:03:40,000 there's a town up there that's gone over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, 56 00:03:40,000 --> 00:03:44,000 and which they never see happen, and also that's the same region where 57 00:03:44,000 --> 00:03:48,000 there's there have been some really significant wildfires. And the smoke from 58 00:03:48,000 --> 00:03:52,000 those wildfires can be seen for many miles. But the problem that we're 59 00:03:52,000 --> 00:03:56,000 starting to see is that these fires are happening more frequently, and 60 00:03:56,000 --> 00:04:00,000 they're more severe than they have been in past decades. We're getting 61 00:04:00,000 --> 00:04:04,000 warmer temperatures, drier fuels, and more lightning, which is causing more 62 00:04:04,000 --> 00:04:08,000 fires generally in the Arctic, year-by-year. 63 00:04:08,000 --> 00:04:12,000 Arctic wildfires happen in these regions that have 64 00:04:12,000 --> 00:04:16,000 really thick organic soils, and you say 'Wait soil burns? What?' 65 00:04:16,000 --> 00:04:20,000 Well, it's it's soil, but it's organic material, too. It's like old leaves and 66 00:04:20,000 --> 00:04:24,000 old moss, and it kind of gets compacted, and it can really burn. 67 00:04:24,000 --> 00:04:28,000 But it's taken tens of thousands years to develop that 68 00:04:28,000 --> 00:04:32,000 soil, and so when it burns, you're releasing a huge amount of carbon 69 00:04:32,000 --> 00:04:36,000 into the atmosphere all at once. As a scientist, when I look at these trends, 70 00:04:36,000 --> 00:04:40,000 I am concerned. Where are we gonna go from here? 71 00:04:40,000 --> 00:04:44,000 That is why we keep studying this. So NASA has a number of field campaigns 72 00:04:44,000 --> 00:04:48,000 that are trying to understand Arctic processes, and I think 73 00:04:48,000 --> 00:04:52,000 that it's really important that we keep up the study and try to better 74 00:04:52,000 --> 00:04:56,000 understand what is happening and what does that mean for people 75 00:04:56,000 --> 00:05:00,000 50-100 years down the road. 76 00:05:00,000 --> 00:05:04,000 77 00:05:04,000 --> 00:05:08,000 EXPLORE EARTH 78 00:05:08,000 --> 00:05:12,597 NASA