WASHINGTON: The sea ice in the Arctic Ocean has melted to its smallest ever level in the latest dramatic sign of the long-term impact of global warming, US researchers said on Tuesday. Scientists at the University of Colorado at Boulder said that data recorded on Sunday broke the 2007 record for the lowest extent of sea ice and that the melt could become even more significant with several weeks of summer left to go.
The National Snow and Ice Data Center at the university said in a statement that the decline in summer Arctic sea ice "is considered a strong signal of long-term climate warming".
The sea ice fell to 4.10 million square kilometers, some 70,000 square kilometres less than the earlier record charted on September 18, 2007, the centre said. Mark Serreze, director of the centre, said that the record was all the more striking as 2007 had near perfect patterns for melting ice, but that the weather this year was unremarkable other than a storm in early August.
"The ice is so thin and weak now, it doesn't matter how the winds blow," Serreze said. Walt Meier, a scientist at the centre, said that the record was on one level "just a number, and occasionally records are going to get set".
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