BY JOE ROMM ON SEPTEMBER 11, 2013
Arctic sea ice volume collapsed from 1979 to 2012, several decades ahead of what the climate models had predicted.
Now new data from the European Space Agency’s CryoSat satellite has revealed that this ice volume trend continued through the spring of 2013.
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[This shows the area covered by ice. But the decline in the amount of ice is even greater, because it is getting thinner.]
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University of Leeds Prof. Andrew Shepherd explains:
“CryoSat continues to provide clear evidence of diminishing Arctic sea ice…. there has been a decrease in the volume of winter and summer ice over the past three years.
“The volume of the sea ice at the end of last winter was less than 15 000 cubic km, which is lower than any other year going into summer and indicates less winter growth than usual.”
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The CryoSat satellite now allows very accurate measures of ice thickness, which can be combined with ice area to give volume. Here is a new video “based on measurements taken between October 2010 and April 2013,” which revealed that “the volume of seasonal winter and summer sea ice has declined year on year during this period.”
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