The melting of the Arctic this year is the most severe fourth of the entire record – Hypertext

On September 11 the frozen surface of the Arctic reached its annual low – being the fourth of registration – Sept. 11, according to data just released Tuesday NASA through the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

The minimum area for this year is 4.41 million square kilometers. A melting leaving an area of ​​ 1.81 million sq km less than the average of all the years between 1981 and 2010.

The frozen surface of the Arctic Ocean helps regulate the planet’s temperature to reflect solar energy into space. This surface, as is logical, waxes and wanes according to seasonal cycles. A lower surface decreases the albedo effect, amount of solar radiation that is returned to the air after colliding with the Earth’s surface, leading to an acceleration of reduction.

In 2012 the thaw occurred more severe since you started taking data in 1979, followed by 2007, 2011 and 2015. This fourth. The surfaces of smaller ones dating ice are all in this last decade.

In recent years, the minimum have been caused to a greater or lesser extent by meteorological factors, but has not been this year.

“This year is the fourth in minimum area, and we have not seen a major weather event or an ongoing pattern in the Arctic this summer has helped achieve this as has happened before,” says Walt Meier, a scientist sea ice Goddard Space Flight Center of NASA in Greenbelt, Maryland. “It was a hot summer in some areas than last year, but also cooler in others.”

“The ice is becoming less and less resistant, and no longer requires so much energy to melt as before, “Meier says. “It used to be a compact layer of ice, is now fragmented into small parts more exposed to heat with seawater. In the past, the Arctic sea ice was like a fort. The ocean could only attack from the . flanks Now it’s as if the invaders had broken down the doors of the fort and invade everything “

NSIDC

Some analyzes indicate that the thick and firm layer of smell that survived the summer, was beginning to recover after the lows in 2012. But according to Joey Comiso, a scientist at Goddard, recovery peaked last year and most likely return to where we were during the melt season.

“The layer thick ice will continue to decline, “Comiso said. “There may be some evidence of recovery for some years, especially when winter is oddly cold, but is expected to return to where it was because the temperature of the earth’s surface in this region continues to rise.”

The same NASA week begin with the operation IceBridge , an aerial exploration of the polar ice will examine various scientific field and validate the readings from satellites whose ultimate goal will be to discern the impact of summer on the surface frost and it is unclear whether one of the causes was the climatic effect El Niño, a climatic phenomenon that typically occurs every two to seven years where the surface water in the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean increases its temperature.