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The Arctic ice pack is the sea ice cover of the Arctic Ocean and its vicinity. The Arctic ice pack undergoes a regular seasonal cycle in which ice melts in spring and summer, reaches a minimum around mid-September, then increases during fall and winter. Summer ice cover in the Arctic is about 50% of winter cover. [1]
Greenland ice sheet as seen from space. An ice sheet is a body of ice which covers a land area of continental size - meaning that it exceeds 50,000 km 2. [4] The currently existing two ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica have a much greater area than this minimum definition, measuring at 1.7 million km 2 and 14 million km 2, respectively.
The 2016 Arctic Report Card reflects the combined efforts of 61 authors from 11 countries. The 12 essays were subject to independent peer-review organized by the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP) of the Arctic Council. In 2016, continuation of long term warming trends and sea ice loss are triggering extensive Arctic Changes.
The Arctic has already lost about half of its sea ice, compared to the 1980s at the end of the summer. It is known that more warming has delayed ice formation, and resulted in thinner sea ice growth.
On the other hand, the East Antarctic ice sheet is far more stable and may only cause 0.5 m (1 ft 8 in) - 0.9 m (2 ft 11 in) of sea level rise from the current level of warming, which is a small fraction of the 53.3 m (175 ft) contained in the full ice sheet.
The first sea ice-free September could occur as early as the 2030s, the study found. Arctic sea ice has been declining for decades but has shrunk at an even faster rate in the past 20 years.
Total loss of the Greenland ice sheet would increase regional temperatures in the Arctic by between 0.5 °C (0.90 °F) and 3 °C (5.4 °F), while the regional temperature in Antarctica is likely to go up by 1 °C (1.8 °F) after the loss of the West Antarctic ice sheet and 2 °C (3.6 °F) after the loss of the East Antarctic ice sheet. [23]
A composite image shared by NASA's Earth Observatory on Nov. 25, 2024 shows, at top, a view of the Greenland Ice Sheet taken from the window of a NASA Gulfstream III plane in April 2024 and, below ...