The ice melt is, according to the researchers, due to the warming of both the waters of the North Atlantic and air temperatures in the region. Gulf Stream Could Shut Down Peter Wadhams, of the Scott Polar Research Institute in the UK, said that for the fifth winter in the last seven years, a huge tongue of shelf ice had failed to form in the Greenland sea. Arctic ice is both thinning and dwindling. The Gulf stream flows north from the Caribbean, keeping Britain at least 5C warmer than expected at its latitude. It merges with the north Atlantic current and the encounter of this giant, warm surface river with the Arctic winter ice is a powerful part of the convection machine which keeps the ocean swirling.
Ice is fresh water - so the sea that remains is increasingly cold, salty and dense.
But the Arctic ice cover is in retreat - shrinking by an area the size of the Netherlands every year. The loss of a large ice mass over the northern polar region would have a dramatic impact on the global climate system. The sinking, cold, dense, salty water which is created as ice forms also helps to drive ocean currents which redistribute heat around the planet. The Arctic is the northern pathway that water travels between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Its vast ice sheets bounce sunlight back into space, creating a cooling effect for the planet.