Understanding Melting Arctic Sea Ice

Reading the seascape

Looking at NASA’s Arctic Sea Ice Minimum 2024 imagery raised some questions.

The Arctic Ocean sea ice melt appears to begin along the Greenland Sea. It then works counterclockwise around the ocean, leaving the ice intact against the Canadian and Greenland shores. When ice on a lake melts, it draws away from the shore and becomes a patch of ice adrift in the middle of the lake. The sun warming the land and perhaps groundwater seeping into the lake cause this. Why is the Arctic Ocean sea ice melt so different from that of lakes?

Why must coffee be warmed on a hot plate and not by a hairdryer?

Why does a pint glass of black coffee on a sunny table next to a glass of milk not become warmer than the milk and air temperature?

The Arctic is warming faster than the Antarctic Peninsula. Might all the stormwater coming off the US Eastern Seaboard into the Atlantic Ocean explain why the Gulf Stream surfaced in Svalbard in 2011, followed by glaciers melting on the land? Does the warm water from the Gulf Stream stop at Svalbard?

Should we not tackle stormwater management and rehydration of the land as ferociously as we decarbonize the atmosphere? Might the former have more of an effect at lessoning Arctic sea ice melt than the latter approach?

Connections to the Deep: Deep Vertical Migrations, an Important Part of the Life Cycle of Apherusa glacialis, an Arctic Ice-Associated Amphipod. Frontiers in Marine Science December 2021 DOI:10.3389/fmars.2021.772766