The Arctic sea ice has melted this year to its lowest recorded level, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Wednesday (November 28).
The first 10 months of 2012 were the ninth-warmest months since records began in the mid-19th century, with early months cooled by a "La Nina" weather event in the Pacific, according to the climate agency, who issued the report in Geneva and Doha during global climate change talks in the city.
"The melting if the ice was much bigger than in previous years, it is the record melting of the Arctic ice", WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud told journalists at a press briefing in Geneva.
"This winter obviously the ice will form again, but it will be fresh ice, it will be thin ice, so ice that will be more vulnerable to future melting", he said. "So definitely the message here is that the trend is not only continuing, but accelerating with respect to the melting of the Arctic ice and this is linked to the chance in the global, in the temperature", Jarraud told reporters.
Satellite images from September 16 showed the Arctic sea ice covered 3.41 million square kilometres, which was 18 percent down from the previous record low in September 2007, the WMO said. Altogether some 11.83 million square kilometres of Arctic sea ice melted between March and September 2012, the agency said.
The WMO is an agency of the United Nations and has a membership of 190 member states and territories
