Newly-released satellite data has shown Arctic ice thinning dramatically between 2004 and 2008, NASA has revealed.
The evidence was collected by the space agency and the University of Washington in Seattle using data from NASA's Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite, known as ICESat, making its basin-wide estimate of the thickness and volume of the Arctic Ocean's ice cover, according to a NASA release.
The data revealed that Arctic sea ice thinned at 7 inches a year, for a total of 2.2 feet over four winters.
"Ice volume allows us to calculate annual ice production and gives us an inventory of the freshwater and total ice mass stored in Arctic sea ice," said Ron Kwok of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., who led the research team. "Even in years when the overall extent of sea ice remains stable or grows slightly, the thickness and volume of the ice cover is continuing to decline, making the ice more vulnerable to continued shrinkage."
"Our data will help scientists better understand how fast the volume of Arctic ice is decreasing and how soon we might see a nearly ice-free Arctic in the summer," he said.
The comprehensive study fills in a research gap in the study of Arctic sea ice and the effects of global warming.
"One of the main things that has been missing from information about what is happening with sea ice is comprehensive data about ice thickness," said Jay Zwally, study co-author and ICESat project scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
"U.S. Navy submarines provide a long-term, high-resolution record of ice thickness over only parts of the Arctic. The submarine data agree with the ICESat measurements, giving us great confidence in satellites as a way of monitoring thickness across the whole Arctic Basin."
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