The area of ice in the Arctic Ocean has thawed to a record low, surpassing the previous 2007 minimum in a sign of climate change transforming the region, according to some scientific estimates.
“We reached the minimum ice area today. It has never been measured less than right now,” Ola Johannessen, founding director of the Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Centre in Norway, said yesterday. “It is just below the 2007 minimum.”
The US National Snow and Ice Data Center, widely viewed as the main authority on sea ice, has projected that the 2007 minimum extent is set to be breached next week. Other scientists monitoring the ice interpret satellite data slightly differently.
A Danish Meteorological Institute ice chart showed the ice extent had also just shrunk a fraction past the 2007 minimum. It said it would defer to the US centre to judge when a record had been set. – (Reuters)