A new study by WWF warns that climate change is having a greater and faster impact on the Arctic than previously thought.The new report, called Arctic Climate Impact Science � An Update Since ACIA, represents the most wide-ranging reviews of arctic climate impact science since the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA) was published in 2005.
The report shows that the melting of Arctic sea ice and the Greenland Ice Sheet is severely accelerated, prompting concerns that both may be close to their 'tipping point'; the point where, because of climate change, natural systems may experience sudden, rapid and perhaps irreversible change. "The magnitude of the physical and ecological changes in the Arctic creates an unprecedented challenge for governments, the corporate sector, community leaders and conservationists to create the conditions under which arctic natural systems have the best chance to adapt," said Dr Martin Sommerkorn, one of the report�s authors and Senior Climate Change Adviser at WWF International's Arctic Programme. According to last year's reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), if the entire Greenland Ice Sheet were to melt, sea levels would rise 7.3m, making its status a global concern.
While it is currently impossible to accurately predict how much of the ice sheet will be melting, and over what time, the new report shows there has been a far greater loss of ice mass in the past few years than had been predicted by scientific models.
Likewise, the loss of summer Arctic sea ice has increased dramatically. In September 2007, the sea ice shrank to 39 per cent below its 1979-2000 average, the lowest since satellite monitoring began in 1979 and also the lowest for the entire 20th century based on monitoring from ships and aircraft.