A new study based on NASA and ESA satellite data shows that Arctic sea ice is thinning at a “frightening rate.”
Measuring the ice via satellites each month from 2018 to 2021, polar scientists Sahra Kacimi of the California Institute of Technology’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Ron Kwok of the University of Washington’s Applied Physics Laboratory observed that it thinned 5 feet (1.5 meters) during that period.
“We weren’t really expecting to see this decline, for the ice to be this much thinner in just three short years,” Kacimi said in a statement released by the American Geophysical Union, which published the new research in one of its journals.
Each year, seasonal sea ice melts entirely in the summertime, so naturally, the ice does get thinner during this period. But the 1.5-meter loss was recorded in what scientists call multi-year ice — thicker ice that sticks around all year long and typically accumulates year-over-year. The loss represents about 16% of the multiyear ice’s volume.
Recent Comments