Arctic sea ice hits record low

This is evidence that Arctic ice is continuing to thin and the Arctic is continuing to warm. Unlike the Antarctic, there is no continent atop the northern Arctic, which remains at least somewhat ice covered year-round. This ice cover expands during the winter, hitting its greatest seasonal extent in March, then waning after summer’s warmth and hitting its lowest extent in September.

Although data on it are difficult to collect, scientists believe that the thickness of Arctic ice is an important indicator of melt. It appears older, thicker ice is disappearing, leaving thinner ice that is more susceptible to melt, according to Meier. The older, thicker ice cover has continued to decrease since 2007.

The implications are numerous. Receding sea-ice cover can disrupt indigenous people’s way of life and threaten animals like polar bears and walruses. The loss of the “refrigerator” on top of the world can alter weather patterns elsewhere in the world. And once ice is lost it becomes more difficult to replace because light can then reach the ocean, which absorbs it and warms.

NSIDC’s continuous measurements go back to 1979, longer than the data collected from sensors the German group is using. When determining if a record has been set, it is important to use the longest-running, validated records.

Check the link for a graph & picture diagram. Whats all your opinions?

thewatchers.adorraeli.com...

reply to post by BasedGod

The data shown in the graph doesn't prove anything whether or not the ice caps are shrinking.
If you compare 2007 with the other years, the extent of sea ice was at a low point in September, but in June it was the highest. Their is almost no difference in June for the years 2007-2008-2010-2011.
The graph is too small to make a conclusive statement.
Why didn't they show it on a time span of a year?
What about the data from winter? Did it also reached a minimum?

Maybe we'll have to wait until October.

During the first week of October, after data are processed and analyzed for the month of September, NSIDC scientists will issue a more detailed analysis of this year's melt season and the state of the sea ice.

nsidc.org...

I found this graph, seasonal sea ice extent for the northern hemisphere.
Summer 2007, ice extent at it's lowest, (+-5.5 Mkm2) but during winter (+-14Mkm2) it recovered to almost the same as in the winter of 1996(in summer +-9Mkm2).
There isn't that much change in ice extent during winter from 1900-2008

reply to post by intergalactic fire
You are confusing two seperate issues. Sea-ice extent.

Discussions about the amount of sea ice in the Arctic often confuse two very different measures of how much ice there is. One measure is sea-ice extent which, as the name implies, is a measure of coverage of the ocean where ice covers 15% or more of the surface. It is a two-dimensional measurement; extent does not tell us how thick the ice is. The other measure of Arctic ice, using all three dimensions, is volume, the measure of how much ice there really is.

Sea-ice volume, Volume is the important measure when it comes to climate change.

Sea-ice consists of first-year ice, which is thin, and older ice which has accumulated volume, called multi-year ice. Multi-year ice is very important because it makes up most of the volume of ice at the North Pole. Volume is also the important measure when it comes to climate change, because it is the volume of the ice – the sheer amount of the stuff – that science is concerned about, rather than how much of the sea is covered in a thin layer of ice*.

Its pointless trying to have a discussion about climate change here, If you present real evidence to back up global warming its totaly ignored

Measurements go back to 1979 - wow 32 years.

Thats like very little time really isn't it in the great age of this earth to plough trillions into something that could reverse in 5 years.

back when the dino's walked the earth there was no ice at all...eventually it will all melt there is nothing we can do to stop it.....its how the world works it warms and it cools...welcome to earth cycles this has been going on since the earth was created and will do so soon after we are gone..