A group of scientists announced yesterday that ice in the Arctic continues to decline rapidly in September, which may be the result of rising temperatures and earlier melting in spring.
This year’s melting could surpass that of 2002, a time when glacier coverage reached its lowest level in over a century, researchers warned.
Data from satellites published by NASA shows that spring ice melt has been occurring unusually early in northern Siberia and Alaska since 2002, and by 2005, this phenomenon was increasing across the entire Arctic ice region.
A research team utilized satellite data collected since 1978 and found that the early melting phenomenon in spring and summer of 2005 began 17 days earlier than usual. The average temperature across much of the Arctic Ocean from January to August 2005 was 2-3 degrees Celsius higher than the average temperature in the region over the past fifty years.
“This decline will impact future temperatures in the Arctic,” said Ted Scambos from the National Snow and Ice Data Center in the United States.
T.VY (According to BBC, Xinhua)
