The Arctic just had the warmest winter on record. The repercussions will be global

Sep 13, 2016

Image: REUTERS/Bob Strong

Gail Whiteman

Director, Pentland Centre for Sustainability in Business, Lancaster University

Jeremy Wilkinson

Sea Ice Physicist, British Antarctic Survey

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Plot line from Ice Mass Balance buoy (IMB016) showing the air temp from the top sensor that is about 2 feet above the snow pack

Colour plot of all the sensors that were above the snow pack

Image: National Snow and Ice Data Center

This shows the September Ice extent in 1979 (upper blue), 2007 (lower blue: second lowest year), 2012 (dotted green: lowest year) and 2016 (red: up to early September 2016 only). The 1981 to 2010 average is in dark grey. The grey area around the average line shows the two standard deviation range of the data. Image: National Snow and Ice Data Center

Monthly March ice extent for 1979 to 2016 shows a decline of 2.7% per decade Image: National Snow and Ice Data Center

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