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Satellite Shows Big Thinning of Winter Arctic Sea Ice, in Just Four Years
On July 14, SMC Global, one of the leading brokerage houses in India, reported that New NASA satellite measurements show that sea ice in the Arctic is more than just shrinking in area, it is thinning dramatically.
ICESat measurements of the distribution of winter sea ice thickness over the Arctic Ocean in 2004 and 2008. Click link for measurements between 2004 and 2008, along with the corresponding trends in overall, multi-year and first-year winter ice thickness. Credit: Ron Kwok, NASA/JPL
NASA scientist Jay Zwally said global warming is to blame.
Click to enlage image
The volume of older crucial sea ice in the Arctic has shrunk by 57 percent from late 2004 to 2008. That is losing more volume of ice than water in Lake Michigan.
He said rapidly shrinking sea ice in the Arctic warms the rest of the globe indirectly. Older ice is more important in the Arctic because it is thicker, surviving the heat of summer and building over time.
Editor’s note: For the full story, read New NASA Satellite Survey Reveals Dramatic Arctic Sea Ice Thinning published July 7, 2009 by the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Thin seasonal ice has replaced thick older ice as the dominant type for the first time on record.
