Ice melting in the Arctic is proceeding faster than predicted. On one of the Canadian islands, two ice caps have already completely disappeared, CNN reports.
The channel notes that in 2017, the scientist Marc Serrez predicted their disappearance in five years. However, satellite images from NASA showed that ice completely disappeared in St. Patrick’s Bay on the Hazena Plateau.
“I can’t say I was terribly surprised because we knew it would be like that, but it happened really quickly,” Serrez said.
Data for 1959 show that the area of the larger cap was almost 7.8 km2, and the smaller one was 2.8 km2. Since then, they have decreased from year to year.
The scientist noted that the heat wave in 2015 greatly influenced the melting of ice, but the climate warming continues now.
Serrez believes that other large ice caps in the St. Patrick’s Bay area will also disappear in 10 years.
He stressed that the Arctic heats up 2-4 times faster than the rest of the globe.
On June 21, TV presenter and zoologist Nikolai Drozdov predicted the extinction of the polar bear population in the Arctic in 20 years.
According to him, due to the active melting of ice in the spring, the ice cover moves away so much that the bear has to swim to the bear for several kilometers in icy water. This, among other factors, negatively affects the reproductive system of animals.