The spring is coming to the Barents Region and the sea ice extent has begun its seasonal decline. This year, the Arctic melt season has begun with a substantial amount of thin first-year ice, which is vulnerable to summer melt.
Studies made by the National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Colorado, United States, shows that the sea ice extent averaged over the month of March 2009 was 15.16 million square kilometers. This is more than the record low of 2006, but far below the 1979 to 2000 average, reports the Environmental Research web.
The Colorado studies are made with the help of satellite images of the Arctic from NASA.
Air temperatures over the Arctic Oceans were an average of 1 to 2 degrees Celsius above normal this winter, with the Barents Sea area as the one with highest temperatures, 4 degrees Celsius above normal.
Indications of winter ice thickness, commonly derived from ice age estimates, reveal that the ice is thinner than average, suggesting that it is more susceptible to melting away during the coming summer.
