Arctic sea ice thickness and volume declining

Abstract

The record low extent of Arctic sea ice area in September 2012 made headlines. Studies using models have suggested that sea volume has also been declining. A new study by Laxon et al. confirms this with observational data. The authors used satellite radar observations from the European Space Agency CryoSat‐2 mission to estimate Arctic sea ice thickness and volume for the falls and winters of 2010–2011 and 2011–2012. By comparing these new data with earlier estimates from NASA's ICESat satellite, they found that the average ice volume declined by 4291 cubic kilometers in fall and 1479 cubic kilometers in winter between the period from 2003 to 2008 and the 2010–2012 period. The average volume of ice loss over both the fall and winter periods was found to be about 500 cubic kilometers per year, equivalent to a 0.075 meter per year decrease in thickness. (Geophysical Research Letters, doi:10.1002/grl.50193, 2013)