Physicists at the University of Bremen, Germany today said that Arctic sea ice has retreated to a coverage of just 1.637 million square miles, believed to be the lowest level in 8000 years.
The scientists said that satellite data confirm that the ice cover has exceeded below the historic low of 2007, when the Arctic ice area was measured at 1.647 million square miles. Arctic ice monitoring began in 1972 and the cover declined by about 50% since then, the research group announced. They also noted that the current ice cover is at the lowest level “most probably” in 8000 years.
“The ice maps of the University of Bremen show also that in this year, the Northwest and Northeast passages are simultaneously ice free,” a press release states. “This had happed for the first time in 2008, and in 2009 the German shipping company Beluga has traveled it commercially for the first time.”
The scientists said that the events as well as current climate models do not support claims that current global is not a man-made scenario anymore. The melting of Arctic ice now directly threatens the lives space, the scientist warn: “For algae and small animals living at the lower side of the ice, less and less living environment remains since they need a certain time to settle there. They are at the beginning of the food chain for fishes, mammals and also man.”
Kurt Bakke in Business on September 09
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