Arctic ice has thinned seven inches a year due to global warming, warns Nasa #climate #arctic #melt
The sea ice in the Arctic is not just shrinking in area but dramatically thinning as well, Nasa scientists have warned.
Satellite images have revealed the volume of crucial older sea ice in the Arctic has shrunk by 42 per cent from the winter of 2004 to 2008. This is equivalent to losing more volume of ice than water in Lake Michigan, the fifth largest lake in the world.
While researchers have known for years that ice covering in the Arctic Sea has been shrinking in area the new satellite data that measure the thickness of ice show that the volume of sea ice is declining as well.
Using NASA’s ICESat spacecraft, scientists calculated that overall Arctic sea ice thinned about seven inches a year since 2004, for a total of 2.2 feet over four winters.
In 2003, 62 per cent of the Arctic’s ice volume was stored in multi-year ice. By last year this had dropped to 32 per cent.
About nine-tenths of the ice is beneath the water, he said.
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