2010 was a record year for the reduction in summer Arctic ice volume
Last reviewed: 20.11.2021
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Last year, the summer volume of Arctic sea ice dropped to a record level.
The former anti-record was 2007.
Evaluation of the volume of ice is associated with understandable difficulties. Satellites give fairly accurate data for the area of ice, but this is not enough to understand what is happening in the Arctic. Many experts note that the reduction in the area of ice is only half the trouble. The ice is thinning: the thick, long-term cover is replaced by a young, thin, unstable one. Therefore, even a possible increase in the area of ice is not capable of appeasing the experts.
Meanwhile, it is impossible to measure the ice thickness in the Arctic. We have to resort to modeling based on limited measurements. Many scientists do not trust the models: the uncertainty and the probability of error are too great.
Nevertheless, Axel Schweiger of the University of Washington (USA) and his colleagues believe that even taking into account all the errors, the ice volume in September 2010 (at its lowest point) was less than in 2007.
The researchers used a well-proven model PIOMAS (Pan-Arctic Ice Ocean Modeling and Assimilation System). They showed that for October 2010, the error could be ± 1.35 thousand km³, and to calculate the rate of decrease in ice volume in 1987-2010 - ± 1,103 km³ per decade. Thus, the most conservative estimate of the decrease in the speed of summer ice volume is 2.8 thousand km³ per decade.
Some experts believe that the rapid loss of the area of summer ice in the Arctic is the result of long-term thinning, which supposedly began long before the current global warming. However, the new study could not find anything like the current 32-year trend of decreasing ice volume in the past.
At this time, the area of Arctic ice is on the way to a new antirecord. Last week, the ice cover occupied an area of 4.6 million km ², and melt about another two weeks. The minimum of 2007 is 4.13 million km².
For comparison: in the early 1970s this indicator was in the region of 7 million km². There is no doubt that until the end of the century the Arctic will be completely free of ice in the summer. They only argue about the exact date.
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