According to NASA and the National Snow and Ice Data Center researchers and recent satellite images of the area, over 90 percent of the Arctic sea ice is only 1 or 2 years old.  This level of new ice means that it is thinner and weaker than any of the Arctic ice in the last three decades.

Unlike the thicker Arctic ice that is two years older or more, this new, thinner ice is melting in the spring and summer, meaning that it isn’t getting the chance to develop thicker layers.

On Monday, Walt Meier, an ice data center scientist voiced his concerns, saying, “We’re not set up well for summertime. We’re in a very precarious situation.”

Meier also says that the level of older, thicker Arctic sea ice was at a record wintertime low this year, covering only 378,000 square miles, accounting for 10 percent of Arctic ice.  This level is down 43 percent from last year.  He equates the lever of mature ice lost with an area the size of the state of Texas.  The amount of ice cover is the 5^th lowest since satellite imaging of the area started in 1979.

Waleed Abdalati, the director for the Center for the Study of Earth from Space also voices his concern over the ice situation.  “That thick ice really traps ocean heat; it keeps the planet in its current state of balance,” said Abdalati, who is also NASA’s former chief scientist, “When we start to diminish that, the state of balance is likely to change, tip one way or another.”

Meier says that we are already starting to see that tip in balance, “There’s already impacts, in terms of the climate, in terms of the people.”