In the depths of winter, ice hugs the coastline of Canada's Baffin Island. Summer sunlight, however, dramatically melts the ice away from the coastline. Seasonal sea ice retreat was well underway on 11 July. Since the turn of the 21st century, however, Arctic sea ice extent has declined sharply, experiencing a series of low summertime extents and poor wintertime recoveries. Arctic sea ice extent set a record low in September 2007. In the first half of July 2009, sea ice declined faster than it did in 2008, but not as fast as it did in 2007, according to figures from the National Snow and Ice Data Center
Photograph: Terra/MODIS/NASA
The Guardian
Comments