{"id":28,"date":"2007-09-23T08:07:24","date_gmt":"2007-09-23T08:07:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/astraea.net\/blog\/?p=28"},"modified":"2007-09-23T08:11:23","modified_gmt":"2007-09-23T08:11:23","slug":"arctic-ice-shrinkage-at-new-record","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.astraea.net\/blog\/arctic-ice-shrinkage-at-new-record\/","title":{"rendered":"Arctic ice shrinkage at new record"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.astraea.net\/holonics\/magazine\/images\/2007\/iceshrinking200708.gif?w=940\" title=\"shrinking ice\" alt=\"shrinking ice\" align=\"right\" \/>The US National Snow and Ice Data Center said the minimum extent of 4.13 million sq km  was reached on 16 September. The figure shatters all previous satellite surveys, including the previous record low of 5.32 million sq km measured in 2005.<\/p>\n<p>Even the fabled Arctic shipping route from the Atlantic to the Pacific, the Northwest Passage, which is normally ice-bound at some location throughout the year, is open and this year, ships have been able to complete an unimpeded navigation.  A fringe benefit of climate volatility?<\/p>\n<p>Sea ice has a bright surface which reflects 80% of the sunlight that strikes it back into space. However, as the ice melts during the summer, more of the dark ocean surface becomes exposed. Rather than reflecting sunlight, the ocean absorbs 90% of it, causing the waters to warm and increase the rate of melting.\u00a0 Scientists fear that this feedback mechanism will have major consequences for wildlife in the region, not least polar bears, which traverse ice floes in search of food.\u00a0 And on a global scale, the Earth would lose a major reflective surface and so absorb more solar energy, potentially <strong>accelerating climatic change<\/strong> across the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The US National Snow and Ice Data Center said the minimum extent of 4.13 million sq km was reached on 16 September. The figure shatters all previous satellite surveys, including the previous record low of 5.32 million sq km measured in 2005. Even the fabled Arctic shipping route from the Atlantic to the Pacific, the &hellip;<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.astraea.net\/blog\/arctic-ice-shrinkage-at-new-record\/\" class=\"more-link pen_button pen_element_default pen_icon_arrow_double\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Arctic ice shrinkage at new record<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-climatechange"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4hwcd-s","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.astraea.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.astraea.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.astraea.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.astraea.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.astraea.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.astraea.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.astraea.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.astraea.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.astraea.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}