Arctic sea ice has shrunk to the smallest surface area since the start of the recording. As a result, the world is now in a 'scenario never predictable' as the more intense the effects of climate change, according to U.S. scientists.
Satellite picture shows the ice had melted up to 3.4 million square kilometers as of 16 September, the lowest point this year.
This is the area of ice cover in the Arctic since the smallest on record in 1979, according to Snow and Ice Data Center National.
"Now we are in a situation that had never imagined," said agency director Mark Serreze said in a statement Wednesday.
"While we have long known that as the warming of the planet, the first change will be evident in the Arctic, but few of us know how to prepare for the rapid changes that are happening now."
Arctic ice is expanding and shrink with the seasons, and the lowest point usually occurs in September.
This year the full extent of the ice continues to shrink to its lowest point, the record had occurred on 26 August and 4 September.
And in two weeks, widespread melting ice cover reaches 517,997 square kilometers, a figure that is large enough for the end of summer.
According to the scientist Walt Meier, "The decline in ice cover are strong at the end of the summer to be an indication of how thin the ice is now."
"The ice is definitely very thin so that it can continue to melt at sunset and autumn comes."
The scientists use the arctic ice extent as a benchmark the overall climate. Apart from annual fluctuations due to natural weather variations, permafrost was apparent shrinking trend in the last 30 years, according to Snow and Ice Data Center National.
"The minimum level of this year nearly 50 percent lower than the 1979-2000 average," according to them.
The research center based in Colorado, said that the composition of the Arctic is changing. Moments before the ice remains frozen throughout the summer, now mostly melted and froze again as the seasons change.
"Twenty years from now in August, you might be able to board through the Arctic Ocean," said scientist Julienne Strove. Though the area is usually covered by ice all year round.
Various climate models predict "ice-free conditions" that occurred in 2050, but the decline of ice extent indicates that conditions could occur more quickly than expected.
The center has now warned that the heat and moisture from the melting Arctic icecap could carry global implications.
"It will gradually affect the climate in the area where we live," he said. "We have fewer polar polar, then there will be more variety and extreme (weather)."
Greenpeace environmental activists concerned about the announcement. They hope that this fact will lead to a sense of relief and the action slowed this trend.
"In just 30 years, we've changed how our planet looks from space., And now the Arctic soon will be ice-free in summer," said Greenpeace director Kumi Naidoo said in a statement.
"I hope that future generations will look at this day as a turning point, when the spirit of global cooperation appears to overcome the great challenges we experienced."
According to scientists, climate change occurred when carbon dioxide and other gases produced by humans appears to the atmosphere and makes it difficult planet to reflect heat back into space, causing the greenhouse effect.
Along with the melting of ice in Greenland, another greenhouse gas, methane trapped in permafrost were released into the air.
Methane comes from the remains of plants and animals that are trapped in the sediment and then terutup the ice in the last Ice Age.
Methane is 25 times more effective at trapping heat than carbon dioxide sunlight.
When methane is released into the atmosphere and the planet warmed again as the greenhouse effect, the more that will melt the ice again, and releasing more carbon into the air.
No comments:
Post a Comment