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This summer, @nasa scientists went to northern Greenland to study how clouds and atmospheric particles may be contributing to the ongoing loss of multiyear sea ice in the Arctic. 🌊🧊
For decades, scientists have tracked sea ice extent and thickness from spring to fall as the melt season unfolds. They’ve found that the minimum extent of Arctic sea ice has declined by about 12% per decade. In addition, much of that ice loss is thick, multiyear ice. Temperatures in the Arctic have risen at least twice as fast—and possibly nearly four times faster—compared to the average for the rest of the world, a phenomenon known as Arctic amplification.
But there are some questions still unanswered. For one, how certain clouds and atmospheric particles affect ice loss. The Arctic Radiation-Cloud-Aerosol-Surface Interaction Experiment (ARCSIX) team used three aircraft to measure cloud, atmosphere, ocean, and sea ice properties. Field measurements like these will help scientists understand how the Arctic is changing, and improve models to project what may happen in the future.
#Earth #Arctic #Greenland #SeaIce #Climate #ClimateChange #Science #NASA #EarthFromOrbit
Image descriptions:
1: Aerial photo. A glacier ends in a blue inlet of exposed ocean water. The water and glacier are surrounded by gray mountains covered in white snow and ice.
2: Satellite image of the Pituffik Space Base in Greenland. The base is on the right side of the image next to an expanse of white ice on the right and chunky broken sea ice below it. The dark blue ocean water is exposed in the center of the image. Opaque clouds obscure it partially.
3: Photo of four people in an airplane cockpit. Through the windows, blue ocean water is visible with white chunks of sea ice floating in it.
4: Video out an airplane window flying over white chunks of sea ice.
5: Photo of low, thin clouds in the Arctic. Most of the image is blue-gray ocean water with a large chunk of thick white sea ice in the lower right corner. There is a thin gap between the ocean water and the clouds on the horizon. The gray clouds cover the top of the image.
