ANCHORAGE, Alaska: About half of the recent record loss of Arctic sea ice can be blamed on global warming caused by human activity, a leading climate research centre has found.
The study, funded by the US National Science Foundation is the first to attribute a specific proportion of the ice melt to greenhouse gases and pollution.
It used one of the world's most sophisticated climate models to reach its conclusions, said lead author Jennifer Kay, a scientist at the National Centre for Atmospheric Research in Colorado. The paper was published last week in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
"There's no doubt about it - sea ice is going away," she said. "What we found was that about half of that trend is related to the increasing greenhouse gases."
The study said the melting of the ice pack was no short-term fluke but an actual change in climate.
Earlier research determined greenhouse gases were responsible for some loss of sea ice, but no one had been able to establish how big a part they played.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/humans-to-blame-for-half-of-arctic-sea-ice-melt-says-study-20110815-1iuv0.html#ixzz1VD7ORXwH
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