Arctic Ice Increased in the Last Two Years Despite Climate Change

Climate change and global warming are responsible for the melting of the Arctic ice and researchers worry that if things don’t change soon, there will be irreversible consequences. However, a new study revealed that in the last couple of years the Arctic ice has actually increased more than 50% despite the devastating effects of climate change and the rising temperatures.

According to the scientists who conducted the study, the Arctic ice increased because the last couple of summers have been cooler than usual in the north polar regions. The scientists explain that this discovery suggests how changing the summer temperatures can be and how it can impact the ice platform.

However, even if the Arctic ice seems to have increased in the last 2 years, the experts are still worried that climate change and global warming continue to seriously affect the area, and will be melting massive sheets of ice in the future.

Previous studies have shown that in the last thirty years, the Arctic ice has been affected the most by the warming temperatures. The satellite images show that more than 40% of the ice that covers the region has melted away in the last 35 years.

Rachel Tilling, researcher at the University College London, and one of the lead authors of the paper, explained that her team analyzed different climate factors that could have damaging effects on the Arctic ice, such as snow loading, wind convergence and the duration of the melting season during the Arctic summer. According to their findings, the length of the melting season was the factor that influenced the most. The scientists found that the last summers have been the coolest in five years, which is why the Arctic ice increased.

The experts analyzed data collected by the CryoSat satellite, which belongs to the European Space Agency. The satellite took images of the Arctic ice for more than five years in order to determine its status and how climate and global warming affect it.

According to the satellite data, from 2010 to 2012 14% of the Arctic ice deposits melted away. However, the next year, in 2013, the sea ice increased by 33%, while in 2014 there was an increase of 25%.

The scientists said that before the CryoSat satellite started to analyze the sea ice, the measurements were not so precise. The details of the new study were published in the journal Nature Geoscience.
Image Source: inhabitat