Last Sunday, September 16, the ice cap that covers the North Pole measured3.42 million square kilometers. That is 18% smaller than five years ago, according to the National Snow and Ice Center of the United States (NSIDC) announced. According to its director, Mark Serreze, global warming caused by humans has caused more and more sea ice to melt and the layer to be much thinner. ? The six months of September with the least arctic ice surface in history have been the last six ,? clarifies Serreze, who assures that it is a very significant figure.
The Arctic sea ice sheet melts in summer and grows in winter. In fact, a new growth cycle began last Monday after reaching its annual low. Experts estimate thatsince the beginning of the eighties until now this icy mass of the planet has been reduced by half.
“The Arctic Sea is one of the most sensitive natural thermometers,” explained Jason Box, a polar researcher at Ohio State University (USA). Scientists compare it to a “planetary air conditioner”, which the more it melts the less effective it is in cooling the Earth. In fact, the most worrying thing is that everything that happens in this polar zone affects the rest of the planet. The melting of the Arctic is believed to be aggravating certain consequences of global warming, includingincreasing droughts and heat waves, just like himslow but steady rise in ocean levelthat threatens low-lying coastal areas. Another result of this phenomenon is the possiblerelease of large methane reserves– a greenhouse gas – trapped in the earth’s crust beneath the Greenland ice.
For Peter Schlosser, an expert at the Earth Institute of Columbia University, the impact on the Arctic is difficult to establish since that region “is likely to respond more quickly and severely than other parts of the planet” to climate change. “The effects of human-induced climate change are increasingly visible and greater impacts are expected in the future,” explains Schlosser.
