Satellite Shows Big Thinning of Old Arctic Sea Ice

[steven johnson]

Rising ocean temperatures are rising near the climatologist's worst case predictions. Ocean temperatures are a better indicator of global warming than air temperature as the ocean stores more heat and responds more slowly to change. The top 700 metres of have warmed by about 0.1 degrees over the past half century and well over half of the increase in ocean temperature has occured in the last 10 years which corresponds to approximately 15 to 20 times more heat going into the ocean than has gone into the atmosphere.

This is not good.


New Report: Rising Ocean Temperatures Near UN’s Worst Case Predictions

Published: July 7, 2009
Filed at 7:18 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- New NASA satellite measurements show that sea ice in the Arctic is more than just shrinking in area, it is dramatically thinning.

The volume of older crucial sea ice in the Arctic has shrunk by 57 percent from the winter of 2004 to 2008. That's losing more volume of ice than water in Lake Michigan.

NASA scientist Jay Zwally said global warming is to blame. 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.


Satellite Shows Big Thinning of Old Arctic Sea Ice



The Earth is going thin on top. A new study has revealed that the Arctic Ocean's permanent blanket of ice around the North Pole has thinned by more than 40% since 2004. Scientists said the rapid loss was "remarkable" and said it could force experts to reassess how quickly the Arctic ice in the summer may disappear completely. They have called for more research to pin down the causes of the change, which they say is probably down to increased melting and shifts in the way the ice moves around.

The Arctic ice cap fluctuates with the seasons, growing in the freezing winter and shrinking over the summer. An important finding of the study is that the majority of Arctic ice no longer survives the summer. In 2003, this multiyear ice made up 62% of the region's total ice volume. By 2008, this was down to 32%. The remaining 68% was "first-year" seasonal ice, which was open water during the summer, so is thinner and more likely to melt away.

Earlier this year, scientists warned that sea ice volume reached a record low in 2008 due to an unusually high proportion of the thinner first year ice.



Nasa image of Arctic ice reveals 40% thinning since 2004