Drastic shrinkage in Arctic ice

A Nasa satellite has documented

startling changes in Arctic sea ice cover
between 2004 and 2005.

The extent of "perennial" ice - thick ice

which remains all year round - declined
by 14%, losing an area the size of
Pakistan or Turkey.

The last few decades have seen

summer ice shrink by about 0.7% per
year.

The drastic shrinkage may relate partly to unusual wind patterns found in 2005, though
rising temperatures in the Arctic could also be a factor.

The research is reported in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

The change we see between 2004 and 2005 is enormous
Son Nghiem

The Arctic is warming about twice as fast as the global average; and recent studies
have shown that the area of the Arctic covered by ice each summer, and the ice
thickness, have been shrinking.

September 2005 saw the lowest recorded area of ice cover since 1978, when satellite
records became available.

Perennial decay

This latest study, from scientists led by Son Nghiem of Nasa`s Jet Propulsion Laboratory
in California, measures something slightly different from the extent of summer ice
cover - the extent of "perennial" ice cover.

Perennial or "multi-year" ice is up to 3m thick and survives through at least one summer.
It is different from "seasonal" ice, which is thinner and melts more easily, surviving for
just one winter before succumbing to the summer sun.

"Perennial ice contains less salinity," explained Dr Nghiem. "It`s freshwater ice - there
are more bubbles in it and typically its surface is much rougher - and a scatterometer [a
radar-based instrument] can distinguish between the two types."

Using the scatterometer on Nasa`s Quikscat satellite, researchers scanned the Arctic for
perennial and seasonal ice. From October 2004 to March 2006 they plotted a steady
decline.

When they compared figures for the 2004 and 2005 northern hemisphere winter
solstices - 21 December - a huge change showed up.

"In previous years there is some variability, but it is much smaller and regional," Dr
Nghiem told the BBC News website.

"However the change we see between 2004 and 2005 is enormous."

The area of perennial sea ice lost was about 730,000 sq km, with a huge loss in the East
Arctic (defined as north of Russia and Europe) and a small gain in the West Arctic, north
of the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean.

Stray winds

Continuous scatterometer data has been available only since 1999, so for comparison
researchers must use the records of summer ice extent - which is almost, but not