The level of sea ice in the Arctic has shrunk to its lowest levels exposing the Northwest Passage, which is an ancient trading route connecting Europe and Asia, according to satellite images provided by the European Space Agency (ESA).
This is the first time that the fabled trading passage has opened up to commercial traffic since records began three decades ago. Lead researcher Leif Toudal Pedersen of the Danish National Space Centre said that the level of Arctic sea ice has shrunk by 1 million square kilometers to 3 million square kilometers this summer.
"There has been a reduction of the ice cover over the last 10 years of about 100 000 sq km per year on average, so a drop of 1 million sq km in just one year is extreme," Pedersen explained. "The strong reduction in just one year certainly raises flags that the ice (in summer) may disappear much sooner than expected."
The previous low for Arctic sea ice was 4 million sq km in 2005. However scientists say that even then the Northwest Passage had not fully opened up as it has done now.
The current images were captured by Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar instrument aboard ESA's Envisat satellite. The scientists pieced together the ice level by studying 200 images taken by this instrument.
When ice melts it absorbs solar energy rather than reflecting it back to space thus increasing ocean temperatures and further contributing to the melting process.
The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had predicted that the Arctic would become ice free by 2070, but scientists say this might happen as soon as 2040.
