NSIDC Scientist - Arctic Sea Ice Recovery From Record Low "An Illusion" - ADN

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WASHINGTON -- Critical Arctic sea ice this winter made a tenuous partial recovery from last summer's record melt, federal scientists said Tuesday. But that's an illusion, like a Hollywood movie set, scientist Walter Meier of the National Snow and Ice Data Center said. The ice is very thin and vulnerable to heavy melting again this summer.

Overall, Arctic sea ice has shrunk precipitously in the past decade and scientists blame global warming caused by humans.

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Viewing the Arctic from space via NASA satellites might make you think the Arctic ice cover is on its way back. But more than 70 percent of that sea ice is new, thin and salty, having formed only since September, Comiso said. The more important ice is perennial sea ice that lasts through the summer, and that ice has hit record low levels.

Compared to the 1980s, the Arctic has lost more than half of its perennial sea ice and three-quarters of its "tough as nails" sea ice of 6 years old or older, Meier said. The amount of lost old sea ice is twice the area of the state of Texas, he said. On top of that, a change in Arctic atmospheric pressure this winter is pushing a large amount of the valuable older ice out of the Arctic to melt, Meier said.

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http://www.adn.com/news/environment/story/349466.html