Texas-Sized Area of Thick Ice Lost in Arctic
The Arctic’s perennial sea ice lost an area the size of Texas last year, in a change that may have an effect on the environment and marine transport, NASA said.
About 288,000 square miles of perennial ice, which normally doesn’t melt during the summer, was lost from 2004 to 2005, scientists found using data from NASA’s QuickScat satellite.
Perennial sea ice can be 10 or more feet thick, according to NASA.
Across the Arctic, about 14% of the perennial ice was lost last year, with the proportion in the east Arctic Ocean rising to almost 50%, the agency said.
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