"New research suggests the decline was a fundamental change unlikely to be reversed this century — perhaps proof that the planet has passed an alarming climactic tipping point"
"Arctic sea ice declined dramatically in 2007 and has never recovered. New research suggests the loss was a fundamental change unlikely to be reversed this century, if ever — perhaps proof of the sort of climate tipping point that scientists have warned the planet could pass as it warms.
The conclusion comes from three decades of data on the age and thickness of ice escaping the Arctic each year as it flows into the North Atlantic to the east of Greenland. Scientists at the Norwegian Polar Institute found a marked difference in the ice level before and after it reached an unprecedented low in 2007.
In the years since, the data shows, the Arctic has entered what the researchers called a “new regime” — one that brings with it a trend toward ice cover that is much thinner and younger than it had been before 2007, the researchers say. They link the change to rising ocean temperatures in the rapidly warming Arctic, driven by human emissions of greenhouse gases."
