Source: Star-News
Date: 12/12/2007
Event: Could all Arctic ice be gone by 2012?
Credit: Star-News
STAR-NEWS - DEC 12, 2007
Could all Arctic ice be gone by 2012?
Satellite images say it might be
By Seth Borenstein, Associated Press
WASHINGTON - An already relentless melting of the Arctic greatly accelerated this summer, a warning sign that some scientists worry could mean global warming has passed an ominous tipping point.
One even speculated that summer sea ice would be gone in five years.
Greenland's ice sheet melted nearly 19 billion tons more than the previous high mark, and the volume of Arctic sea ice at summer's end was half what it was just four years earlier, according to new NASA satellite data obtained by The Associated Press.
"The Arctic is screaming" said Mark Serreze, senior scientist at the government's snow and ice data center in Boulder, Colo.
Just last year, two top scientists surprised their colleagues by projecting that it could disappear entirely by the summer of 2040.
This week, after reviewing his own new data, climate scientist Jay Zwally said: "At this rate, the Arctic Ocean could be nearly ice-free at the end of summer by 2012, much faster than previous predictions".