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Sunday, October 9, 2011

Arctic Sea Ice Continues Decline

artic sea going decrease
Arctic ice going decrease (NASA)
Every year the growth of developing Arctic sea at sunset for several months. Then shrinks when the sun had risen. However, last month declined sharply vast Arctic sea-second lowest on record.

Shrinking ice is likely to be followed by an increase in temperature of the earth, but the conditions this time is different. "Atmospheric and oceanic conditions were the resource persons not as conducive to ice losses this year, but the melt still neared 2007 levels," said NSIDC scientist Walt Meier. "This reflects Probably loss of multiyear ice in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas as well as other factors are making the ice That more vulnerable."

Joey Comiso, senior scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.., Said the minimum sea ice Continued low levels, fits into the pattern of large-scale decline Unfold That Scientists have watched over the past three Decades.

"The sea ice is not only declining, the pace of the decline is Becoming more drastic," Comiso said. "The older, Thicker ice is declining faster than the rest, making for a more vulnerable, perennial ice cover."


Arctic sea ice extent on Sept. 9, the lowest point this year, was 4:33 million square kilometers (1.67 million square miles). Averaged over the month of September, the ice extent was 4.61 million square kilometers (1.78 million square miles). This places 2011 as the second lowest ice extents Both for the daily minimum extents and the monthly average. Ice extents was 2:43 million square kilometers (938,000 square miles) below the 1979 to 2000 average.

The data show that Arctic sea ice extent is not only declining, but also its thickness. "The oldest and thickest ice in the Arctic Continues to decline, ESPECIALLY in the Beaufort Sea and the Canada Basin," said NSIDC scientist Julienne Stroeve. "This Appears to be an Important drivers for the low sea ice conditions over the past Few summers."

Climate models have suggested the Arctic That Could lose almost all of its summer ice cover by 2100, but in recent years, ice extent has Declined faster than the models predicted.

Reprinted from NASA

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