Previous research suggested that sea ice is able to recover in the winter following a strong summer melt because thin ice grows faster than thick ice. However, new findings that heat from the Atlantic Ocean is overpowering this stabilising effect – reducing the volume of sea ice that can regrow in the winter. This means that sea ice is more vulnerable during warmer summers and winter storms. The new research, published recently in the Journal of Climate, describes how scientists used satellite data including that from CryoSat and SMOS through ESA’s Climate Change Initiative to calculate changes in the volume of Arctic sea ice between 2002 and 2019.

Read full story: Arctic sea ice succumbs to Atlantification