This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Relatively few people have been to the Arctic, and even fewer have set foot in Antarctica. Most people rely on imagination and the media to visualize these landscapes and the ways they are changing.
Research shows that the Arctic is warming four times faster than the global average. Sea ice is melting, exposing more open ocean and throwing the ecosystem out of balance. The story of Antarctica contains fewer details, but emerging trends concern researchers.
Conceptualizing this change can be challenging for those of us who have only glimpsed Greenland from an airplane window, but for someone with firsthand experience, it's eye-opening. Melinda Webster, a research scientist at the University of Washington's Applied Physics Laboratory, has visited the Arctic at least once a year since 2009, sometimes staying for as long as five months. Webster is the lead author of a new research paper, published in Nature Reviews Earth & Environment, that describes how sea ice has changed over the past 50 years.
Their analysis arrives as the world begins preparations for the fifth International Polar Year, a dedicated period of observation that will peak during the 2032–33 season. International polar years have occurred every 30 to 50 years since the late 1800s to advance polar research and track environmental change. The upcoming International Polar Year will occur just 25 years after the last, held in 2007, because of the acceleration of climate change.
"There aren't many colors on Arctic sea ice. It's a gradient of blues and grays; a stunning, stark icescape that makes you appreciate how harsh and fragile the environment is," Webster said. "The state of ice cover is both an indicator and an amplifier of climate change." Webster discusses her findings in greater detail below: We have known for a long time that the extent, or area, and thickness of sea ice are declining, especially in the Arctic.
But we wanted to take that a step further to examine the properties of the ice, especially perennial ice, which doesn't completely melt away in summer. We updated trends for sea ice with 15 to 20 more years' worth of data to understand how it has changed through the contemporary period. We also wanted to emphasize the divergent responses we see in the Arctic and Antarctica and make recommendations for future research.
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