WASHINGTON — The amount of long-lasting sea ice in the Arctic — thick enough to survive for up to a decade — declined sharply in the past year, even though the region had a cold winter and the thinner one-year ice cover grew substantially, federal officials said Tuesday. Using new data from NASA’s ICESat satellite, researchers detected the steepest yearly decline in “perennial” ice on record over the past year. As a result of melting and the southward movement of the thicker ice, the percentage of the Arctic Ocean with this stable ice cover has decreased from more than 50 percent in the mid-1980s to less than 30 percent as of last month.

“Because we had a cold winter, the public might think things have gotten better,” said Walter Meier of the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder. “In fact, the loss of the perennial ice makes clear that they’re not getting better at all.”

The surprising drop in perennial ice makes the fast-changing region more unstable because the thinner seasonal ice melts readily in summer.

The Arctic lost an unprecedented amount of ice during last summer’s unusual warmth, and Meier said conditions are right for a similarly large melt if the temperatures are at all above normal this year. The area of thick Arctic ice lost over the past two decades equals one and a half times the size of Alaska.

While normal weather variation plays a role in yearly ice fluctuations , officials said the dramatic decline in perennial ice — which can range from 6 feet to more than 15 feet thick — appears to be consistent with the effects of global warming.

Officials said the loss of long-lasting ice was less the result of warming of the atmosphere than if a long-term rise in ocean temperatures and the effects of the “Arctic oscillation,” a variable wind pattern that can either keep icebergs in the Arctic (when it is “negative”) or push them south (when it is “positive”). Climate experts believe that both the rising water temperature and increasingly frequent “positive” oscillations are a function of global warming.

Josefino Comiso of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, the lead author of a related 2007 study, said Arctic ocean temperatures appear to be rising quickly because less of the water is covered by ice, which reflects sunlight and keeps water temperatures cool. After last summer’s very warm summer, the amount of ice cover shrank dramatically and so the water became warmer.

He said climate experts have concluded that the Arctic oscillation, a natural climate phenomenon, is also being modified by global warming. The dynamics are not yet understood, but it appears that warmer temperatures in the tropics and elsewhere make it more likely that the oscillation will push icebergs down past Greenland and into the Atlantic.

Arctic sea ice always grows and shrinks, ranging from an average minimum in September of 2.5 million square miles to an average winter maximum of 5.9 million square miles in March. Instruments on NASA’s Aqua satellite, as well as U.S. Defense Department satellites, showed that the maximum sea ice extent in March increased by 3.9 percent over that of the previous three years because of the cold winter.

Nonetheless, the total ice coverage was still 2.2 percent below the long-term average. The very old ice that remains in the Arctic for at least six years made up over 20 percent of the Arctic in the mid- to late-1980s, but by this winter it had decreased to six percent.

• ECONOMIC - June 7th, 2008
• Serbia's neighbors recognize Kosovo's new independence - March 20th, 2008
• Sen. Clinton lacked good judgment on Iraq: Obama - March 20th, 2008
• US Senate confirms : Moriarty as Ambassador to Bangladesh - March 17th, 2008
• Barrymore Is People’s ‘Most Beautiful People 2007 - March 17th, 2008

Spread By Word of Mouth