Danish and German scientists from the Technical University of Copenhagen (DTU) and the Centre for Marine and Climate Research at the University of Hamburg report that the melting of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean has accelerated dramatically and is proceeding much more rapidly than feared. At the moment less than 3 mio. square kilometres of ice cover the Arctic. Lars Kaleschke from the Institute for Physical Oceanography at the University of Hamburg predicted a minimum in the ice coverage of only 3.5 mio. square kilometres a month ago. The present value is a record low since satellite observations began 35 years ago. During the past five years the ice coverage did not decrease below around 4 mio. square kilometres, and in the 1990's there was at least around 4.7 mio. square kilometres during summer.
The melting of the polar ice cap is considered to be an important alarm signal for climate change. The consequences of global warming can be particularly well observed at the Earth's poles, since the effects are amplified there, said Lars Kaleschke in an interview with the Hamburger Abendblatt.
According to the DTU calculations, in comparison with the summer with the least ice up to now, 2005, more than an additional one million square kilometres of ice have disappeared. Compared with the average coverage of the years 1978 tp 2000, the coverage has decreased by around 2.5 mio. square metres (40-45%). This means that an ice area the size of western Europe has disappeared in less than a decade.
Contact:
Prof. Dr. Lars Kaleschke, Institute for Physical Oceanography,
Centre for Marine and Climate Research, University of Hamburg
Bundesstraße 53, 20146 Hamburg
Germany
Tel.: 040 42838 6518
www.ifm.uni-hamburg.de
