The duration of the sea ice melting season in the Arctic Ocean has grown by five days per decade since 1979, according to a study by NASA and the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC).
In addition, as this phenomenon begins each time, the ocean absorbs an additional amount of solar radiation that causes the Arctic ice sheet to melt in summer to a thickness of 1.20 meters in some areas.
“The prolongation of the thaw causes more energy from the sun to be stored in the sea and the sea ice or frozen layer generally weakens,” according to NSIDC researcher Julienne Stroeve, lead author of the work, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
Scientists have relied on data from NASA’s Nimbus-7 satellite and various weather satellites. The results show that, although the thaw season lengthens in both spring and autumn, with an earlier onset of melting and later freezing, the predominant phenomenon is the later onset of the autumn frost season.
Some areas, such as Beaufort and Chukchi, are freezing six to eleven days later per decade . However, the variations in the beginning of fusion are less significant, due to the impact on the amount of solar radiation absorbed by the ocean, since the date coincides with a situation of the highest and brightest sun in the northern sky.
According to experts, when the ice sheet re-freezes in autumn varies from year to year, “which makes it difficult for the industry to plan when to stop operations in the Arctic,” Stroeve says. monthly the evolution of the sea surface temperatures and the albedo data, as it is known to the solar energy that reflects the ice and the sea.
They also studied the entry of solar radiation between the months of May and October, based on data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the polar orbiting satellites of that body.
