Ice loss in the Arc­tic: alre­a­dy up to 80 % at mini­mum times

The loss of lar­ge are­as of sea ice in the Arc­tic Oce­an is an ongo­ing pro­cess. In Sep­tem­ber 2012, new nega­ti­ve records were rea­ched once again. Now the­re is some more infor­ma­ti­on about the qua­li­ty of the loss: as expec­ted, the ice is not only shrin­king in area, but also in volu­me. The mini­mum dis­tri­bu­ti­on, that is usual­ly rea­ched in Sep­tem­ber, is now down to only 20 % of what it was in 1980 – a loss of up to 80 % within just 2 deca­des.

The­se results are part of a recent stu­dy of data of US- and Euro­pean rese­arch satel­li­tes. The pro­ces­ses dri­ving the loss are both atmo­sphe­ric and ocea­nic and are not yet ful­ly unders­tood. This makes it dif­fi­cult to pre­dict the fur­ther deve­lo­p­ment in detail, but the­re is litt­le doubt that the loss will con­ti­nue.

Source: Geo­phy­si­cal Rese­arch Let­ters

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