German scientists, who returned from a 16-week expedition on Thursday, found that the perennial ice in the central part of the Arctic had almost disappeared and was replaced by “young”, one-year ice, according to the press service of the German Institute for Polar Research named after Alfred Wegener, which organized the expedition
“In the central part of the Arctic, the share of large-scale perennial ice has sharply decreased, now ice fields consist mainly of thin, first-year ice … Where there used to be multi-year ice of relatively large thickness (from two to five meters), now thin annual ice with a thickness of about 90 centimeters prevails , - said in the message of the press service.
The expedition found perennial sea ice only in the water area of the Canadian Basin and near the Severnaya Zemlya archipelago.
The research vessel Polarstern with a group of scientists led by Marcel Nicolaus and Stefan Hendricks returned to the port of Bremerhaven on Thursday, having traveled over 11.8 thousand nautical miles (21.8 thousand kilometers). 130 scientists from six countries took part in the research.
Scientists also note that this year they found no signs of new ice formation.
Photo: Credit unknown / paranormal-news.ru
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Photo: Credit unknown / paranormal-news.ru
“During the 2007 expedition, we observed thin ice, for example, in the Laptev Sea, but this time we did not observe the formation of new ice anywhere,” said expedition member Professor Ursula Schauer.
The thickness of the ice was measured by electromagnetic induction using an instrument called the EM Bird, a probe nearly 4 meters long. The measurements were taken from a helicopter. Scientists have obtained a number of "profiles" of the thickness of sea ice for the central part of the Arctic, with a total length of about 2.5 thousand kilometers.
These results, as it is said in the message, do not differ from the data on ice thickness for 2007, when the minimum area of distribution of Arctic ice was recorded for the history of observations since 1979, amounting to 4.17 million square kilometers.
“The ice has not recovered. This summer, the melting was as strong as in 2007, they are just as thin,”the words of Hendrix are quoted in the message.
In March, experts from the US National Snow and Ice Information Center (NSIDC) reported that the Arctic ice continues to "get younger": in March 2011, ice aged about one to two years accounted for 80% of the total ice cover, while in 1980-2000 years this figure averaged 55%.
Weather conditions, according to NSIDC experts, in 2011 compared to the "record" 2007 were less extreme in terms of ice melting: four years ago, the air temperature in the Beaufort Sea and the Chukchi Sea was five degrees Celsius above the climatic norm, then like this year she just got close to her. In addition, the surface temperature anomalies in the Arctic Ocean were also less significant.
In addition to the distribution and thickness of the ice cover, the expedition of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar Research studied the marine ecosystems of the Arctic Ocean. Based on observations of changes in the temperature regime of near-surface waters and the process of ice melting, scientists suggest that Arctic marine ecosystems may soon become "more productive".