With Arctic Sea Ice Vulnerable, Summer Melt Season Begins Briskly Pete Spotts - The Christian Science Monitor
go to original May 3, 2013

Disappearing Arctic Sea Ice - Melting Polar Ice Cap (Bright Enlightenment)

After a record loss of summer sea ice in the Arctic Ocean last year, the 2013 melt season has begun at the top of the world, with ice vanishing in April at a faster pace than it did this time last year.

Summer sea ice – a key player in Earth's climate system and one whose decline is widely taken as a prominent sign of global warming – has been shrinking in extent since satellites first started to build a consistent record of the ice in late 1978. Ice losses in 2007 set a melt-season record, only to be eclipsed by last year's decline. Ice volume and thickness also have been declining during the past 34 years.

Whether the start to the 2013 thaw presages another record melt is unclear. ...At the least, ice conditions entering this year's melt season appear to have set the stage for another significant retreat, compared with the 1979-2000 average.

Read the rest at The Christian Science Monitor

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