Get Ready for An Arctic Summer Retreat!!

(Serious Climatic Disaster for Souther Coastal Cities of the Globe)

London
Oct. 15: British researchers on Thursday revealed latest data on Arctic Ocean which proves that the sea ice in the Arctic Ocean is rapidly thinning, supporting the theory that the ocean will be largely ice-free during summers within a decade.

An ice-free Arctic could lead to drastic climate changes and extreme global weather like alarming increase in temperature and increased floodings affecting one-fourth of the world population.

The scientists analysing the data found that the survey area is comprised almost exclusively of first-year ice. Traditionally, the region has contained older, thicker multi-year ice. The average thickness of the ice-floors measured 1.8 metres, a depth considered too thin to survive the next summer’s ice melt.

The scientists at the Cambridge University made the findings based on data collected in the Catlin Arctic Survey, completed earlier this year.

The survey, which provides the latest ice thickness record, collected by manual drilling and observations on a 450-kilometre route across the northern part of the Beaufort Sea. “With a larger part of the region now first year ice, it is clearly more vulnerable.

The area is now more likely to become open water each summer, bringing forward the potential date when the summer sea ice will be completely gone,” said Professor, Mr Peter Wadhams, of the Polar Ocean Physics Group at the University of Cambridge, who led the data interpretation group.

He said that the data reveals that ice-free Arctic is not distant in future. “The Catlin Arctic Survey data supports the new consensus view — based on seasonal variation of ice extent and thickness, changes in temperatures.