The thickness of Arctic sea ice “plummeted” last winter, thinning by as much as one-fifth in some regions, satellite data has revealed.
The team from University College London say that the results provided the first definitive proof that the overall volume of Arctic ice is decreasing. The findings have been published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. “The ice thickness was fairly constant for the five winters before this, but it plummeted in the winter after the 2007 minimum,” said lead author Katharine Giles.
Co-author Dr Laxon said the project’s findings are being used to help climate modellers refine their projections of what is going to happen in the future. “The time when Arctic sea ice is going to disappear is open to a lot of debate,” he said. “About five years ago, the average projection for the sea ice disappearing was about 2080. But the ice minimums, and this evidence of melting, suggests that we should favour the models that suggest the sea ice will disappear by 2030-2040, but there is still a lot of uncertainty.”
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