Walking on Thin Ice

Central Europe is not the only place where the past, warm winter has caused record temperatures. Unusually mild temperatures also prevented ice formation in the Arctic, specifically in the region around Spitsbergen.

Arctic sea ice plays an important role in climate change. The decline of average sea ice cover, observed over the past years, means that sea ice reflects progressively less solar energy back into space, causing temperatures in the Arctic to rise further. Usually, large areas of Spitsbergen are surrounded by ice at the end of the winter, and the fjords are frozen.

"This year, our aircraft had to fly all the way to the limits of their range in order to collect sufficient data above the sea ice", said Dr Jörg Hartmann, climate scientist at the Alfred Wegener Institute. The recently published UN climate report highlights warming of the Arctic as one of the four key issues in relation to global climate change.

---LiveScience Staff

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Credit: Christoph Lüpkes, Alfred Wegener Institute