Apr 6 2009
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(New page: NASA announced that NASA and the National Snow and Ice Data Center had captured new data indicating that the decade-long trend of diminishing sea-ice cover had continued. In addition, new ...)
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NASA announced that NASA and the National Snow and Ice Data Center had captured new data indicating that the decade-long trend of diminishing sea-ice cover had continued. In addition, new evidence from satellite observations showed that the ice cap was thinning, as well. Scientists using satellite data to track Arctic sea-ice cover stated that, during the winter of 2008-2009, they had noted the fifth lowest maximum ice extent recorded since the beginning of satellite monitoring in 1979. All six of the lowest maximum ice events had occurred since 2004. Studying ICESat data, NASA researchers had discovered that, in addition to the diminishing ice extent, ice thickness had been declining. The new, thinner ice is more vulnerable to summer melt than the older, thicker ice it replaces. Researchers explained that more than 90 percent of the sea ice in the Arctic was only one or two years old at the beginning of the spring of 2009—an indication that the Arctic sea ice was thinner and more vulnerable than at any time in the past three decades.
NASA, “Satellites Show Arctic Literally on Thin Ice,” news release 09-079, 6 April 2009, http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2009/apr/HQ_09-079_Sea_ice_thins.html (accessed 17 May 2011); Seth Borenstein for Associated Press, “Arctic Sea Ice Thinnest Ever Going Into Spring,” 7 April 2009.
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