
Researchers are worried that the sea ice levels are dropping every year.
In the last two decades, the sea ice that normally forms on the surface of the Arctic Ocean and Antarctica has melted with as much as 30 percent. This year, in particular, scientists measured a dramatic drop in sea ice levels as far as both regions are concerned, much greater than expected.
Brenda Ekwurzel says that the Earth is going to suffer greatly from this in the future. November 20th marked an awful day for the National Snow and Ice Data Center when scientists measured the sea ice levels. It turns out that today there are approximately 8,500 million square kilometers of sea ice, nearly 1,000 million square kilometers less than what the levels used to be in 2012.
While the ice is melting, the Antarctic is only growing larger by the day. Hence, in 2016, the total quantity of water enclosed in the Antarctic exceeds 13,000 million square kilometers. However, the main cause for worry is that with sea ice levels dropping, global temperatures won’t stop going up.
The head of climate science for the Union of Concerned Scientists, Brenda Ekwurzel holds the explanation. She says that the main purpose of sea ice is to bring down temperatures. In essence, the thick layer of frozen water acts like a natural air conditioner for the planet.
Once the ice melts, the dark waters of the oceans will attract hot sun rays, rather than reflect them back into space. As a result, the global temperatures will start rising. Furthermore, the ocean waters will get increasingly hotter, which could affect the sea creatures swimming in the deep.
More worrying is the fact water covers no less than 70 percent of the total surface of our planet. With the sea ice layers growing increasingly thinner, the level of global warming that could result will cause many species to go extinct, humans included.
If something, researchers with the National Snow and Ice Data Center strongly agree upon one thing, in particular. They say that global warming caused by sea ice levels going down will carry disastrous consequences for the marine life everywhere, mainly in the Antarctic and the Arctic waters. Moreover, the changes in the melting cycle of the sea ice layers will also affect the seasonal succession in many areas of the Earth.
Image Source: Pixabay


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