

According to scientists from Nasa and the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado, the ice cover is the smallest in the three decades since the polar cap has been monitored by satellite.

The ice is measured by a Special Sensor Microwave Imager, on a US spacecraft. The ice is currently 1.58 million square miles.

nasa ice

Sunset in the Arctic: Each year, the ice cap melts throughout the summer months before expanding through winter

Today's ice is 27,000 square miles smaller than 2007, when 1.61 million square miles of ice were measured.

And the 2012 "melt season" could still continue for several weeks, resulting in an even larger loss of ice.


But over the last three decades, satellites have observed a 13% decline per decade in the sea ice, which is measured when it is at its smallest, and the ice is steadily getting thinner.

ice caps


Joey Comiso, senior research scientist at Nasa, said the results were particularly unusual, because temperatures had not been exceptionally warm.

He said: "The persistent loss of perennial ice cover - ice that survives the melt season - led to this year's record summertime retreat. Unlike 2007, temperatures were not unusually warm in the Arctic this summer."

"In 2007, it was actually much warmer. We are losing the thick component of the ice cover.


ice cap

The sea ice concentration from September 21, 1979, which is much larger than 2012

NSIDC research scientist Walt Meier said: "By itself it's just a number, and occasionally records are going to get set.




Rod Downie, Polar Programme Manager for WWF-UK said the new research was concerning.


