The melting north pole

The melting north pole

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  The Melting NorthPole by Student Name Foundation Course – Course # Tutor: Tutor's Name Educational Institution Department dd mm yyyy
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  Table of Contents Introduction...................................................................................................................................................3 Growingof ice in North Pole:.......................................................................................................................3 Moving of ice:...............................................................................................................................................5 Statistics........................................................................................................................................................6 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................................................7
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  Introduction Increased human activitiesin the Arctic has led to the diminishment of Arctic sea ice, about 70,000 km2 per year and has raised concerns for the region’s future. Measurements show that the ice has grown thinner, approximately 40% in the last two decades. The region is opened to increased human activities like commercial shipping, Arctic oil and gas exploration, in addition to deposition of soot by the maritime vessels. Black carbon from incomplete combustion is lodging over the ice and is causing graying of ice caps which was once a reflective surface to absorb more of sunlight and warm the water. Increased water temperatures are having grave impacts on the flora and fauna that are dependent on ice. In near future Polar bears are likely to face extinction as their breeding habitat is given to melting ice. Trapped green house gases like methane are released due to the melting areas of permafrost. Some simple maths can give us the glimpse of the complexity faced by the scientists in handling ice-ocean-climate models. Melting of ice in North Pole: In the present times the melting of ice in the North Pole has widely increase. This is harmful for the ecosystem as there is a sudden extinction of many species such as polar bear and plankton. Also, it leads to the release of the gases such as methane, the effect of the same has already been observed in the Pacific Ocean. Air and water temperature, wind and ocean currents highly influence the sea ice. We are landed up with some questions like, How fast the ice grows?, What can be the thickness of the ice?, and so on. Let’s consider a block of ice of uniform thickness, of surface area about 1m2 is floating on the water. The ice block has a column of air above it, which has constant temperature below the freezing point of sea water and the water below the ice is above the freezing point. Fourier’s law
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  of heat conductioncan describe the rate of heat transfer, which if given by the following differential equation Where, Q is the heat, T is the time, k is the thermal conductivity of the ice, h is the thickness of the ice , is the temperature at the ice/air interface and is the temperature at ice/water interface. A layer on the water surface freezes as the water below the ice loses heat. This formation of ice can be explained by the following relation between the mass m of the layer and the heat loss Q: Q=Lm, where L is the latent heat. The product of density D and volume of water gives the mass m of the layer of water. Density is proportional to temperature but the temperature of the layer closer to the ice/water interface is constant(Alexiades.1992). Thus, the loss of heat of water through the ice layer is Q joules, and the thickness of ice h grows by an amount Q/LD, On combination with the previous equation, the resulting differential equation is And the solution to the above equation is the function given as: where is ice layer’s initial thickness.
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  Rate of growthslows down with the increase in thickness h of the ice. Ice layer of different thickness can be leveled, as the thin ice grows more rapidly than thick ice. It has been observed that the equilibrium thickness of ice is 2.88 meters. Moving of ice: To one’s surprise ice moves in a constant motion. It is driven by the ocean currents and the winds that tear at their surfaces. Cracks and ridges develops due to the pressure and stress created by the wind and the ocean currents, and thus they change their response according to wind and ocean. To understand this movement and its dependence on external forces in an efficient manner, we use Newton’s second law of motion, which states that the acceleration of the object equals the result after dividing the net force acting by the mass of the object. Again, let’s take a block of ice of uniform thickness with area of 1m2 . Resulting force is sum of various stresses acting on the ice that includes stress both due to wind and water. Coriolis force, the force exerted on the object by the movement of the earth cannot be eluded, as it plays a vital role in movement of the ice. The above stated words can be made clear by the following expression which can be written as , , and are vectors describes both the motion and magnitude of the force.
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  Wind exerts stresson the ice and drags it along in the flowing water, which is calculated using the equation where is the density of the fluid, A is body’s surface area and is water’s velocity. C is the constant defined as the drag coefficient of the body and it is also responsible for the shape of the object body. Object with bulky body provides greater resistance to the flowing water than the thin and flat one. The amount of drag increases as the square of the airflow’s speed. Based on assumption, value of A is taken as 1 and the value of C is between 0.0014-0.0021. If the ice flow is not in motion, the equation takes the following form where is the air velocity. The relative velocity to be used is , taking the self-movement velocity of ice into consideration. Thus, the equation takes the form: In similar fashion, we can determine the stress exerted by water using water density along-with an underwater drag coefficient. The expression for Coriolis force is given as: where, m is the mass of the ice-piece, velocity of ice, is latitude and angular velocity of the earth (Golden & Perovich, 2014). The direction of the force is 90 degrees to the right of the velocity of the ice in northern hemisphere and 90 degrees to the left of the velocity of the ice in southern hemisphere. Statistics
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  Another vital featureof ice-ocean modeling is statistics. All mathematical and experimental models lay their emphasis on the observations and their predictions are compared with real values. Collecting the information is not a child’s play. Satellites gives the pictures of the surface of the ice whereas submarines gives the picture of two-dimensional vertical slice of ice. Conclusion The Arctic has a complex environment and is largely uncharted. International customary maritime law-UNCLOS governs the arctic and Arctic council is responsible for the cooperation. EU also seconds the multilateral approach. The point at which ice-capable technology, delineation of maritime and continental shelf boundaries, high energy prices, climate conditions, and proper management of maritime traffic converges in sufficient manner, then only prospect for investment and utilization can be undertaken (Stroeve et al, 2014). The six initiatives of January 2014 Implementation Plan for National Strategy for Arctic region includes increasing awareness of arctic domain, preventing spilling of hazardous material, containment, enhancing arctic search and rescue for the same and promoting arctic waterways management. Arctic exploration is not the matter for the future, the matter to be concerned is the geopolitical importance which can be gained when the oil prices increases, Ice-capable technology will have to be available throughout, despite seasonal or year-to-year fluctuations, interests in maritime shipping routes must hike and geopolitical community should be convinced that any commercial development will not hamper the Arctic environment. It’s high time for everyone to set in action now. Let’s get on with our duty towards the environment and take every step to save the Arctic. References Alexiades, V. (1992). Mathematical modeling of melting and freezing processes. CRC Press.
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  Golden, K. M.,& Perovich, D. K. (2013). Multiscale Models of Melting Arctic Sea Ice. UTAH UNIV SALT LAKE CITY DEPT OF MATHEMATICS. Stroeve, J. C., Markus, T., Boisvert, L., Miller, J., & Barrett, A. (2014). Changes in Arctic melt season and implications for sea ice loss. Geophysical Research Letters, 41(4), 1216-1225.