New wintertime low for Arctic sea ice: scientists

The extent of sea ice in theArctic Ocean has set a new record low for the wintertime in aregion strongly affected by long-term trends of global warming,U.S. and European scientists saidon Wednesday.

Sea ice around the North Pole expands to its biggest extentof the year in February or March after a deep freeze in the
winter polar darkness and shrinks to the smallest of the year inSeptember, at the end of the brief Arctic summer.

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Arctic sea ice appears to have reached its annual maximumextent on March 7, the lowest maximum in the 38-year satelliterecord, according to the Colorado-based U.S. National Snow andIce Data Center.

On that date, the ice covered 14.42 million squarekilometres, 97,000 square kilometresbelow the previous lowest maximum that occurred on Feb. 25,2015.

The trend of shrinking ice around the North Pole in recentdecades has been one of the starkest signs of climate change.

The thaw is harming Indigenous peoples' hunting livelihoodson the ice and threatening wildlife, such as polar bears. It alsomakes the region more accessible for shipping as well as oil andgas exploration.

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Worldwide, last year was the warmest on record for the thirdyear in a row, despite government efforts to rein in man-madegreenhouse gas emissions under a 2015 Paris Agreement that aimsto phase out the use of fossil fuels this century.

Earlieron Wednesday, scientists at the University of Bremenin Germany published similar findings. Their data showed thatthe ice covered just 14.49 million square kilometreson Feb. 22, almost the size of Russia,fractionally smaller than the previous winter low of 14.58million square kilometres set last year in satellite recordsdating back to the 1970s.

"We've passed the winter maximum," Georg Heygster, of theInstitute of Environmental Physics at the University of Brementold Reuters. Only a sudden, unusual March freeze would push theice back to above the February extent.

Sea ice in the Arctic could vanish by 2050 on a trend ofrising emissions, according to a UN panel of climate experts.

At the other end of the world, sea ice around Antarctica hita record low for the southern summer last month, the NSIDC said.

The shrinking sea ice exposes more water to the sun's raysin summertime. That can accelerate global warming because darkblue water soaks up more of the sun's heat than white ice orsnow, which reflects it back into space.