Climate change is foiling my efforts to make a movie about climate change! My filming schedule this summer has been moved up due to rapidly changing ice conditions. I am now in a rush to prepare for an early departure.
The National Arctic Snow and Ice Data Center reports that the northern sea ice extent for April 2018 averaged 980,000 square kilometers (378,400 square miles) below the 1981 to 2010 average and roughly 20,000 square kilometers (7,700 square miles) above record low April extent set in 2016. Furthermore, the ice is half as thick as it was in 1970.
Given the uncertainty in measurements, NSIDC considers 2016 and 2018 as tying for lowest April sea ice extent on record.
With these tenuous ice conditions, we have been called to head north one month ahead of our original filming schedule. It is tough to know how the sea life will respond to changing ice conditions. Will migrating animals come early? Will we miss them completely?
One thing is certain, we will need to be very careful about where we establish our base camp on the sea ice. Each day, vast swaths of sea ice will continue to break away and head south. We need to find a safe spot within range of the floe edge, but within the realm of safety.
