Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency - Next Month, Arctic Ice Will Hit Lows Not Expected Until 2050

[hatrack]

Aug. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Arctic sea ice has shrunk to a record low and will next month decrease to a level not expected until 2050, the Japan Aerospace Exploration agency said.

Sea ice at the North Pole was 5.31 million square kilometers (2.1 million square miles) as of Aug. 15, lower than the previous record of 5.32 million seen in September 2005, according to research released yesterday by the space agency and the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology.

The area is expected to shrink further to about 4.5 million square kilometers by mid-September, the amount the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted would occur in 2050, the space agency said in a statement.

Arctic sea ice, which is at its smallest every year in September, is melting more than usual this year due to a low pressure system over Siberia that's causing warm air to flow over the Arctic region, the statement said.

EDIT

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601101&sid=a.w89M6qRlXk&refer=japan

On edit - title tweak.

[Dead_Parrot]

1. Not as slow as may have been presumed

Still, it's nice to know someone's taking over from the castrated NASA.

[phantom power]

2. I wonder if they came up with that estimate before or after...

seeing this year's Arctic melt-o-rama?