This is the final blog post on the 2011 Sea Ice Break-up Forecast for Barrow, Alaska, as it seems that break-up has occurred on July 3rd. Paolo was very quick to raise questions two days ago.
From the official Barrow Break-up website of the Sea Ice Group of the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska Fairbanks:
2011 break-up has occurred. Break-up at UIC-NARL occurred probably around 3 July 2011 (date to be confirmed). Early melt pond development along the Chukchi Sea coast and a large sediment load of the ice may have contributed to the timing of disintegration of the landfast ice this year. Few bits of ice were left drifting along the Barrow coast to the South on 4 July. While the near-shore section of landfast ice at UIC-NARL was gone by 4 July, a substantial amount of grounded ice persisted 1 mile offshore. Also, grounded pressure ridges that formed at UIC-NARL close to the shore during the February ice shove were still in place on 4 July.
I believe this is the earliest recorded break-up, apart from the years when no significantly grounded pressure ridges formed (2002, 2003, 2004, 2007):
Melt ponds formed very early as well.
For more background information read:
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