Arctic Sea Ice Thinning at Record Rate
28 October 2008
The thickness of sea ice in large parts of the Arctic declined by as much as 19% last winter compared to the previous five winters, according to data from ESA’s Envisat satellite.
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| Decrease in ice thickness. Click to enlarge. |
Using Envisat radar altimeter data, scientists from the Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling at University College London (UCL) measured sea ice thickness over the Arctic from 2002 to 2008 and found that it had been fairly constant until the record loss of ice in the summer of 2007. Unusually warm weather conditions were present over the Arctic in 2007, which some scientists have said explain that summer ice loss. However, this summer reached the second-lowest extent ever recorded with cooler weather conditions present. (Earlier post.)
The research, reported in Geophysical Research Letters, showed that last winter the average thickness of sea ice over the whole Arctic fell by 26 cm (10%) compared with the average thickness of the previous five winters, but sea ice in the western Arctic lost around 49 cm of thickness.
Dr. Katharine Giles of UCL, who led the study, said the extent of sea ice in the Arctic is down to a number of factors, including warm temperatures, currents and wind, making it important to know how ice thickness is changing as well as the extent of the ice.
Ummm! Not many comments on this very drastic data. Global warming skeptics crowed like crazy when last winter's below normal temperatures seemingly restored much of the 2007 arctic sea ice loss due to the 2007 hot & extended Siberian summer that dumped large quantities of heat into the arctic. However, the thin one year ice replaced multiple year thick ice. Much of that thin one year ice disappeared by September 2008, despite the lack of a severe northern hemisphere hot summer.
Posted by: litesong | 31 October 2008 at 11:54 AM