A rapidly warming Arctic has caused leads-long, wide breaks in the Arctic ice-to open during winters. Image credit: Kerri Pratt
The Arctic is warming faster than any other place on Earth, and thanks to this, sea spray aerosols similar to what researchers see in California are being generated during the Arctic winter, according to a new University of Michigan study. Summertime Arctic sea ice cover is the second lowest on record, according to the Arctic report card 2019, produced by the National Snow and Ice Data Center, continuing its rapid decline over the past several decades. That trend has continued into the fall, with ice in the Chukchi Sea northwest of Alaska at its lowest level on record, according to climate experts at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. The thinning wintertime sea ice cracks, creating open water called "leads. These leads can be over a half mile across, and U-M researchers have discovered they are the dominant source of aerosols in the coastal Alaskan Arctic during the winter. Their results are published in the journal American Chemical Society Central Science. "We found that the sea spray aerosol was dominating atmospheric particulate matter population at a time when we didn't expect it to be there,” said senior author Kerri Pratt, U-M assistant professor of chemistry.
TO READ THIS ARTICLE, CREATE YOUR ACCOUNT
And extend your reading, free of charge and with no commitment.
