We have a new record for Arctic sea ice, or more properly, the lack of Arctic sea ice. Scientists reported the lowest amount since they started using satellite imaging in 1977. Here's an article from The North Denver News. They write:
University of Colorado at Boulder researchers are now forecasting a 92 percent chance that the 2007 September minimum extent of sea ice across the Arctic region will set an all-time record low.
The researchers, who forecast in April a 33 percent chance the September minimum of sea ice would set a new record, dramatically revised their prediction following a rapid disintegration of sea ice during July, said Research Associate Sheldon Drobot of CU-Boulder's Colorado Center for Astrodynamics.
"During the first week in July, the Arctic sea ice started to disappear at rates we had never seen before," said Drobot, who leads CCAR's Arctic Regional Ice Forecasting System group in CU-Boulder's aerospace engineering sciences department.
"We have been seeing a sharp decline in thicker, multi-year ice that has survived more than one melt season," said CCAR Research Associate James Maslanik. "This has been replaced in many areas by a thin, first-year layer of ice as well as by younger, thinner types of multi-year ice. The thinner ice just does not have the mass to withstand the effects of warming climate."
The record low September minimum for sea ice, set in 2005, is 2.15 million square miles, Drobot said. For 2007, the highest probability minimum extent is 1.96 million square miles, although there is a 25 percent chance the low will fall to 1.88 million square miles and a 5 percent chance the September sea-ice extent will fall to 1.75 million square miles, he said.
