Different age ices This photo from the Landsat 8 spacecraft captures ice at the boundary between lan

Different age icesThis photo from the Landsat 8 spacecraft captures ice at the boundary between land and the open Arctic waters in the Amundsen Gulf, at the far northwestern tip of Canada.The lightest ice you see is “first year” ice, ice that just formed during this cold season and has yet to survive a full summer. If Ice survives a full summer or more, it grows thicker each year it survives,darkening the color. The deep blue ice is therefore thicker and older, having survived several melting seasons. Because first-year ice is the thinnest, it is most susceptible to melting during the following summer. As sea ice thins in the Arctic due to the warming climate, there is less and less multi-year ice each year, leading to more melting every year and an Arctic that is spiraling down to less and less ice each year.-JBBImage credit: NASA/USGShttp://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/ArcticLongSwath/ -- source link

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