Study: Arctic ice cover drops 23 percent
NASA scientists said the Arctic's thick, year-round sea ice cover has diminished 23 percent during the past two winters.
That drastic reduction of perennial winter sea ice is believed the primary cause of this summer's fastest-ever sea ice retreat on record and the subsequent smallest-ever extent of total Arctic ice coverage.
A team led by Son Nghiem of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Jet Propulsion Laboratory studied trends in Arctic perennial ice cover by combining NASA satellite data with a computing model based on observations of sea ice drift from the International Arctic Buoy Program.
Between winter 2005 and winter 2007, the Arctic's perennial ice cover shrunk by an area the size of Texas and California combined, the researchers said. Scientists said they observed less perennial ice cover in March 2007 than ever before, with thick ice confined to the Arctic Ocean north of Canada.
Study results will be published in journal Geophysical Research Letters. // Copyright 2007 by United Press International
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