more and more in the Russian marginal seas of the Arctic ocean formed ice melts on its way into the Central Arctic. The writing of researchers from the Bremerhaven Alfred-Wegener-Institute (Awi) for Polar and marine research in the journal Scientific Reports. Around 20 years ago, about half of the marginal seas formed ice reached the Central Arctic. Meanwhile, there were only 20 percent.
When the ice, for reasons of climate change, melt at an early stage, would not be distributed to the trapped nutrients in the Arctic ocean, the scientists write. In the long term is not to be expected that the Arctic will change as a result, only physically, but also biologically and chemically, said Awi researcher Eva-Maria Said. “The extent we do not know yet.”
The researchers followed the migration of the sea ice using satellite data from the years 1998 to 2017. “That ice, which today is the FRAM Strait reached, is formed for the most part, not in the marginal seas, but originates from the Central Arctic,” said Awi scientists Thomas Krumpen. “We are currently witness to an important transport ow and the world is a sea of free summer in the Arctic a big step closer.”
“The ice is about 30 percent thinner than it was even 15 years ago,”
In the Russian marginal seas Fort the Awi to be in the Winter during sea ice, because the air temperatures are extremely low – up to minus 40 degrees. A strong, offshore Wind, pushes the shallow water formed young ice on the sea. A part of this ice travels through the TRANS-polar drift, as on a conveyor belt within two to three years, once across the Central Arctic to the FRAM Strait. In this part of the sea between Greenland and Spitsbergen, it eventually melts.
There is always less in the shallow coastal zones of the generated sea-ice reaches the FRAM Strait, there is less and less suspended solids and minerals that are trapped during Freezing of the water in the sea ice. The show analyses, the Awi biologists for two decades in the FRAM Strait. With the early melt of the sea ice, the particles sink used to be. In the Awi constructed sediment traps in the FRAM Strait is less and less Siberian minerals are to be found, said there was need to.
the result of the study is Confirmed by measurements of sea ice thickness in the FRAM Strait. “Ice cream, the leaves today, the Arctic is through the FRAM Strait, is about 30 percent thinner than it was even 15 years ago,” said Krumpen. Reasons for this are the increasing temperatures in Winter and earlier beginning of the end of the melting season in the summer.
