Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Université Joseph Fourier and CNRS have explained the reasons for the striking level of ice shrinkage suffered by the Arctic sea ice during the last few decades, thus surpassing various climate model forecasts.
According to a recent study, the disappearance of Arctic sea ice could occur more quickly than predicted by climate models. Credit: CNRS
They dispute the present calculations of climatic models on the pace of ice thinning and suggest that it occurs around four times quicker than their estimations and further explained that the miscalculation occurred due to the non-inclusion of ice drift through the Fram strait from the Arctic basin. The research results published on 29th September issue of Journal of Geophysical Research indicates that the Arctic sea ice will disappear during summer by the end of the present century.
The Arctic has been found losing around 10% of its lasting ice cover in every decade since 1980 and it has reached an alarming level in the middle of September 2007 by covering an area of around 4.14 million sq km only and has reached more or less the same level of 4.34 million sq km in September 2011. Detailed satellite observations for a period of 30 years have proved that prediction of the researchers about the disappearance of Arctic as positive.
The Franco-American team explained that the difference occurred due to the distortions in the models that represent the reflex actions of the pack ice and the drift of sea ice. To establish their point, the researchers studied the mechanisms such as thickness and concentration of the sea drift ice then compared the model estimations by blending them with the field data. Earlier in 2009, the same researchers had established the increased level of Arctic ice flow in recent decades. They explained that the thinning of arctic ice, which has increased in recent times has made the sea ice thinner and fragile to break up easily, and the thinning and breaking of ice with increased level of free movement drift to the Fram strait from the Arctic basin between Svalbard archipelago and the Greenland. They suggested for including the increased level of ice movement through the Fram Strait in the models to observe the Arctic sea ice thinning.