The heat from warm river water draining into the Arctic Ocean is major contributor to the melting of Arctic sea ice each summer, according to NASA press release.
As part of the recent study, researchers used satellite data to measure the surface temperature of water from a Canadian river.
The water flowed into the Beaufort Sea during the summer of 2012, according to NASA.
They were able to observe and confirm that a sudden arrival of warm river water into the sea drastically heated up the surface layers of the ocean, contributing to the melting of sea ice.
"River discharge is a key factor contributing to the high sensitivity of Arctic sea ice to climate change," Son Nghiem of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., said in a statement, according to the NASA release. "We found that rivers are effective conveyers of heat across immense watersheds in the Northern Hemisphere. These watersheds undergo continental warming in summertime, unleashing an enormous amount of energy into the Arctic Ocean, and enhancing sea ice melt. You don't have this in Antarctica."
The sea ice cover in the Southern Ocean around Antarctica has basically been stable, meanwhile Artic sea ice has been declining drastically since 2004, according to researchers.
Essentially the researchers said the increase in warm river water flow could be attributed to three major factors.
"First, the overall volume of water discharged from rivers into the Arctic Ocean has increased. Second, rivers are getting warmer as their watersheds heat up. And third, Arctic sea ice cover is becoming thinner and more fragmented, which makes it more vulnerable to rapid melting. And third, Arctic sea ice cover is becoming thinner and more fragmented, making it more vulnerable to rapid melt. In addition, as river heating contributes to earlier and greater loss of the Arctic's reflective sea ice cover in summer, the amount of solar heat absorbed into the ocean increases, causing even more sea ice to melt," said NASA.
Back on June 14, 2012, researchers observed a stretch of landfast sea ice formed "a barrier that held the river discharge close to its delta," according to NASA. The river water broke through the ice on July 5, and it was found that the surface temperature of the area of open water increased by 11.7 degrees Fahrenheit.
Researchers also estimated the heat from 72 rivers in North America, Asia, and Europe. They determined that rivers every year are comparable to all of the electric energy used by California in 50 years at current consumption rate, according to NASA.
"If you have an ice cube and drop a few water droplets on it, you're not going to see rapid melt," said study co-author Dorothy Hall of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., according to the press release. "But if you pour a pitcher of warm water on the ice cube, it will appear to get smaller before your eyes. When warm river water surges onto sea ice, the ice melts rapidly."
Research was published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters recently.
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