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Arctic ice cap shrinks by area twice that of France

French explorer Jean-Louis Etienne, center, leaves the house on which his airship crashed after it broke from its moorings on Tuesday at Tourettes, France. Jean-Louis Etienne told reporters at the scene of the accident that his planned trip to measure the thickness of the Arctic ice cap in April "won't be taking place with this vehicle." PHOTO: AFP

The Arctic ice cap has shrunk by an area twice the size of France's land mass over the last two years, the Paris-based National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) said on Wednesday.

"The year 2008 promises to be a critical year on every level," said Jean-Claude Gascard, the body's research director and coordinator of European scientific mission Damocles, which is monitoring the effects of climate change across the Arctic.

Measurements from last September show ice covering 4.13 million square kilometers, down from 5.3 million square kilometers in 2005.

"Melting could result in the loss of another million in one [2008] summer," he added at a press conference.

"Summer 2007 was marked by a major retreat in the ice-cap, one we were not anticipating," Gascard said. "The rate of decline is also two or three times faster than [observed] beforehand."

International models used to predict retreating ice have some "catching-up" to do, he said.

Over the last 20 years, 40 percent of the ice-cap has melted with the average thickness halved from three to 1.5m.

Year-round ice coverage has reduced, with summer melting also lasting longer, the center reported.

The Damocles' exploration vessel Tara has been able to cross the 5,000km Arctic Ocean in just over 16 months -- less than half the time taken by a late 19th century Norwegian explorer.

Gascard said the ship had been able to travel at "twice the pace expected by organizers, and three times the speed models suggested."

Disruption to the thermal layers of atmosphere stacked over Earth's far north was cited as the principal cause by Swedish researchers earlier this month, in a study published in the journal Nature.

The Tara team recorded a temperature of 10oC at altitudes between 500m and 1,000m.

"The reduction in the intensity of cold [temperatures] during winter over these last 20 years corresponds to an accumulation [rise] of 1,000oC," Gascard said.

The team highlighted the role of ocean currents, namely in the northern Pacific, behind warming of waters.

Gascard's research colleague, Gerard Ancellet, also spoke of recently formed Arctic mist, pollution clouds which "trap" Earth's naturally emitted infrared rays thereby raising temperatures.
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