Arctic loses sea ice more than half the size of the Prairies
Digital Reporter
Saturday, March 5, 2016, 3:42 PM - After a record-breaking 2015 – declared the hottest year on record – it’s no surprise that 2016 began on the same wave.
January 2016 was the hottest month in the Arctic’s recorded history, and the region’s sea ice has taken the largest loss, reaching a record low for the month of February.
Recent reports from the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) note that the Arctic is missing a mass of sea ice that’s 1,160,000 square kilometres -- more than half the size of the Prairies. The missing sea ice was calculated in comparison to the 1981-2010 long-term average.
Image courtesy of the NSIDC.
This February’s low falls below the previous record set in 2005 by more than 199,400 square kilometres.
”It marks the fourth month in a row where the globe has been more than 1 C above normal,” said senior science writer Brian Kahn in a Climate Central report. Incidentally, those are the only four months where the globe has topped that mark since record keeping began.”
Mark Serreze, director of the NSIDC, told Mashable that this is the strangest winter he’s ever seen. “[The entire Arctic] was just absurdly warm, I’ve never seen anything like that.”
Must See: When hot tea is thrown up in Arctic air, something stunning happens.
SOURCE: Statistics Canada | NSIDC | Climate Central | Mashable
