Highlights
A new analysis has quantified for the first time the amount of multi-year ice that is being lost due to melting, and the percentage is significant. In the study, Ron Kwok and Glenn Cunningham of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory used a range of satellite data to show that between 1993 and 2009, nearly 1,400 cubic kilometers 336 cubic miles was lost due to melt, about 32 percent of the overall decline.
By nearly all measures, the amount of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean has been shrinking since satellites first started taking measurements. Scientists have been particularly concerned about the disappearance of older “multi-year” ice, which usually grows thicker and more stable after surviving one or more summer melt seasons.
Previous studies by NASA’s Joey Comiso and other scientists found that the Arctic has lost about 10 percent of its multi-year ice per decade since 1979. The floating ice either melts in place or it is “exported,” pushed by winds or currents out of the Arctic.
Some scientists asserted that wind-driven export was responsible for nearly all of the Arctic losses.
The source article Arctic Sea Ice Melting and Moving was published November 10, 2010 by NASA .
