An international group of scientists from Norway, the USA, Canada and the UK found that the melting of sea ice in the Arctic occurs up to two times faster than previously thought. This is reported in an article published in the Cryosphere magazine.
Researchers calculated the thickness of sea ice in the period 2002-2018 years based on new data on precipitation and snow cover. It turned out that in four of the seven seasanic seas of the Arctic, the average thickness of the ice is reduced from 60 to 100 percent faster than it follows from traditional climatic data obtained by satellite radar heights.
According to scientists, the thickness of the sea ice is a sensitive indicator of a catastrophic climate change in the Arctic. Global warming is stronger than all in this region, and the growth of average temperatures here beats records, causing an accelerated melting of both glaciers on land and marine ice cover. Despite inter-annual fluctuations that mask a general trend, researchers revealed a statistically significant reduction in ice cover for six of the seven winter months.
Thicker ice acts as an insulating blanket, not allowing the ocean to heat the atmosphere in winter and protecting the ocean from sunlight in summer. Thin ice almost completely disappears in the summer months.