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Floating sea ice shrinks in the Arctic mongabay.com August 10, 2007
Dr. William Chapman, a University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign researcher who tracks Arctic sea ice, said that the combination of natural fluctuations and human-induced climate change and pollution are responsible for the retreat. While Chapman's findings differ from those by the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colorado, NSIDC sea ice expert Mark Serreze said that by September Arctic sea levels will indeed by quite low by historical standards. The Arctic is particularly sensitive to changes in the extent of sea ice, which helps reflect sunlight back into space, cooling the region. When sea ice melts, the dark areas of open water absorb the sun's radiation, trigger a positive feedback loop that worsens melting.
Earlier this year Julienne Stroeve of the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) and colleagues reported that September sea ice extent retreated at a rate of about 7.8 percent per decade during the 1953-2006 period. "I'm not terribly optimistic about the future of the ice," said Serreze in April, after publishing a sea ice paper in the journal Science. "As greenhouse gases continue to rise, the Arctic will continue to lose its ice. You just can't argue with the physics." Comments? News options
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