The Arctic sea will be ice-free in the summer within 20 years, shortening the global time frame on climate change by a decade, according to a new report released on Wednesday.
Without drastic cuts in emissions, the Transpolar Drift, one of the Arctic's most powerful currents and a key disperser of pollutants, is likely to disappear because of global warming.
The presence of ice-rafted debris (IRD) in middle Eocene ocean sediments has previously been demonstrated, but it has been unclear whether the source of IRD was land-based glacial ice or sea ice, a distinction with important climate implications.
New Nasa satellite measurements show that sea ice in the Arctic is more than just shrinking in area, it is dramatically thinning. The volume of older crucial sea ice in the Arctic has shrunk by 57% from the winter of 2004 to 2008. That
The modern Arctic Ocean is regarded as a barometer of global change and amplifier of global warming and therefore records of past Arctic change are critical for palaeoclimate reconstruction.
A team of British adventurers measuring ice conditions in the Canadian Arctic said on Wednesday they did not find the thicker, older ice that scientists expected to be there.
Instead they found only the thinner, predominantly first-year ice that is likely to melt in summer months, in what could be another sign of the impact climate change is having on the Arctic ice sheets.
John Vidal, The Guardian
In the past four years, air temperatures have increased, sea ice has declined, surface waters in the Arctic Ocean have warmed and permafrost is thawing.
