Where Did All The Ice Caps Go?

The article by NASA is about the ice cap's summer minimum and how it's declining "This year's sea ice extent is substantially higher than last year's record low minimum. On Sept.16, 2012, Arctic sea ice reached its smallest extent ever recorded by satellites at 1.32 million square miles (3.41 million square kilometers). That is about half the size of the average minimum extent from 1981 to 2010." The article goes on to say that though this year's minimum is an improvement from last year's it is still on the track of the predicted decline. The reason it's part if the predicted decline is because according to the article "There is always a tendency to have an uptick after an extreme low; in our satellite data, the Arctic sea ice has never set record low minimums in consecutive years."

These low minimums are caused by the greenhouse effect which is cause by the ever increasing build up of CO₂ in the atmosphere causing solar radiation to get caught inside the ozone. If the ice caps keep decreasing it could cause species like the polar bear to die out. This would mess with the food web of this particular area. If they died out seals would have less to no predators which would cause over population. I believe that this article has a strong argument and more people should be aware of the effects on the environment.


http://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/arctic-sea-ice-minimum-in-2013-is-sixth-lowest-on-record/#.Um72NMvD_qA