HONG KONG: Sea ice “extent” measured at 1.7 million square miles is almost 700,000 square miles below the average reading according to data released by the National Snow and Ice Data Center just recently.
The next step is to assess the extent of sea ice’s influence on methane emissions by measurements in the field.
The sea ice has shrunk since satellites started measuring it in 1979.
The 2012 melt remains in the number one spot (followed by 2007 and 2011), but the latest shrinkage further reinforces that the slight rebound sea ice experienced in 2013 didn’t reverse an overall downward trend.
The 10 lowest extents on record have all occurred in the last 11 years according to NASA.
The report devised by the federal agencies demonstrated that the minimum extent of sea ice per annum is about 1.70 million square miles. “Since the 1990s, the arctic has been losing sea ice at a tremendous rate – about 14 percent per decade”.
Exceptionally warm weather around the North Pole this summer contributed to the fourth-greatest melting of Arctic sea ice on record. The low was driven partially by an August storm, according to NASA.
The sea ice that envelops the arctic is a critically important natural tool that aids in the regulation of the Earth’s temperature by emulating solar energy back to space. It has been found that ice in the Arctic has become less resilient, and is taking very less time to melt, Meier added. The ocean could only attack it from the sides. But as the ice thins, that could change, Goddard climate modeler Richard Cullather said in the statement. However, as sea ice shrinks, it exposes more seawater to sunlight, and then ocean absorbs more heat, which in turn melts more ice.
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