Arctic Ice Melting Faster, Longer than Ever Before

Every year, the Arctic loses a little bit more ice than it did the year before.

Arctic sea ice is melting faster and longer now than at any other time in the past 1,450 years of existence, according to a new study in the latest issue of Nature. The study sought to find out whether the recent decline in ice cover was consistent with other periods of peaks and valleys in annual ice cover. The research, led by two members of the Geological Survey of Canada, looked at the summer ice minimums – the point at which ice stops melting in the summer – over the past centuries and determined that at no point in a millennium and a half has the ice been receding at the magnitude, and for the duration, that it has in the past couple decades. These findings come after NASA research suggested the Arctic ice cover for this summer was the lowest ever on record.