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Recent increase in the length of the melt season of perennial Arctic sea ice
Author(s) -
Smith Douglas M.
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/98gl00251
Subject(s) - arctic ice pack , sea ice , environmental science , arctic sea ice decline , climatology , arctic geoengineering , arctic , global warming , melt pond , ice albedo feedback , atmospheric sciences , sea ice thickness , oceanography , climate change , geology
General circulation models predict that greenhouse gas induced global warming will be amplified in the Arctic as a result of temperature‐albedo feedback. Whilst recent observations of decreasing Arctic sea ice extent are consistent with this scenario, the possibility that such a trend is attributable to local effects at the ice margins rather than to atmospheric warming cannot be dismissed. In the absence of direct air temperature measurements, warming over Arctic sea ice may be inferred from an increasing duration of the summer melt season. Analysis presented here of the dates of spring melt and autumn freeze‐up observed over a large fraction of perennial Arctic sea ice using passive microwave data from the SMMR and SSM/I from 1979 to 1996 reveals an increase of 5.3 days (8%) per decade in the number of melt days per summer.