Science News
4 October 2004 | Assesing the Long-term Contribution of Landfast Ice to the Arctic Freshwater BudgetYanling Yu and Harry L. Stern For the full project description, click here. Arctic Sea Ice Declines Again in 2004For more information, go to the press release at the National Snow and Ice Data Center. 
Researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder have found that the extent of Arctic sea ice, the floating mass of ice that covers the Arctic Ocean, is continuing its rapid decline. The latest satellite information indicates the September 2004 sea ice extent was 13.4 percent below average, a reduction in area nearly twice the size of Texas, said Mark Serreze of CU-Boulder's National Snow and Ice Data Center, or NSIDC. In 2002, the decline in arctic sea ice during September — which traditionally marks the end of the summer melt season — was about 15 percent, a record low, said CU-Boulder researcher Walt Meier of NSIDC. The decline in sea ice extent during September has averaged about 8 percent over the past decade, said Serreze, who is part of a CU-Boulder team monitoring Arctic sea-ice conditions. "This is the third year in a row with extreme ice losses, pointing to an acceleration of the downward trend," he said. "While a 'low' September ice extent one year is often followed by a recovery the next year, this was not the case in 2003, which was about 12 percent below average," Serreze said. The September 2004 sea-ice loss was especially evident in extreme northern Alaska and eastern Siberia. The CU-Boulder researchers used remote-sensing data from the SSMI satellite to record the sea-ice changes. "We're seeing more melting of multi-year ice in the summer," said Julienne Stroeve, a CU-Boulder scientist with NSIDC involved in the research. "We may soon reach a threshold beyond which the sea ice can no longer recover." NSIDC is part of CU-Boulder's Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences. |