ENVIRONMENT: Earth’s Arctic Freezer Turning Into Hothouse

ENVIRONMENT: Earth’s Arctic Freezer Turning Into Hothouse UXBRIDGE, Apr 10 (IPS) – The world is losing its northern freezer as Arctic winter ice is in sharp decline, NASA scientists reported this week. Even with below average winter temperatures, Arctic... More

ENVIRONMENT: Earth’s Arctic Freezer Turning Into Hothouse UXBRIDGE, Apr 10 (IPS) – The world is losing its northern freezer as Arctic winter ice is in sharp decline, NASA scientists reported this week. Even with below average winter temperatures, Arctic ice is thinner and covers less area than it did a decade ago. Arctic sea ice is the cooling mechanism for the global climate system. As it declines and the region warms – already three to five degrees Celsius warmer – then inevitably there are local, regional and hemispheric climate impacts. “We’ve already lost one third of the summer ice cover since the 1980s. There are already impacts from this,” says Ron Kwok of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. “A completely ice-free summer by 2013 is not impossible,” Kwok said in a telephone news conference. “You would have been laughed out the room if you suggested this five years ago. ” The new study shows that the maximum extent of the 2008-2009 winter sea ice cover was the fi Less