more bad news

from Alarmed Scientists Warn: Even in Winter, Arctic Ice Melting:

The vast expanses of ice floating in the Arctic Sea are melting in winter as well as in the summer, likely because of global warming, NASA scientists said Wednesday.
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And if the ice continued to melt at the current rate, Comiso said, it could have profound effects on all life in the Arctic and other consequences around the world.

Particularly hard hit would be the polar bears, which live on the ice, he said. Sea ice also provides oxygen-rich cold water needed for the growth of phytoplankton. A decline in the number of the tiny plants could have a cascading effect on the food supply of fish and crustaceans, seals and the other marine mammals.
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It's not impossible that the sea ice could recover in coming years, [NASA researcher Claire] Parkinson said.

"The possibility is there that the Arctic will recover, but that is not as likely as that it will continue to decrease," she said.
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The loss of Arctic sea ice has global effects, scientists say.

Sea ice is made of frozen ocean water, and when it melts, it doesn't raise the ocean's level as do melting glaciers and ice sheets. But less sea ice means a smaller area of ice to reflect radiation away from Earth, and the dark, open water absorbs heat. Both phenomena could accelerate the world's warming, scientists say.
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"If you asked me five years ago if it was human activity (causing global warming) versus natural variability, I was a fence-sitter," [Mark Serreze, senior research scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo.] said.

"The magnitude of the changes is starting to rise above the noise of natural variability. There is a continuing trend. What we see in the Arctic is part of a much larger picture. We hate to say, 'We told you so.' But we told you so."