Why Arctic Sea Ice Hit New Low

The Arctic sea is still melting - in the 2016 race against climate change, things were not going so well, because according to The Washington Post, the average sea ice atop the Arctic Ocean only came up to 12 million square kilometers, beating the previous May record by nearly half a million square kilometers. It is also well over a million square kilometers below the average for the month.

The Arctic's melting ice is really part of a vicious warming circle, study says https://t.co/m7nltAeFlo (@NASA/GSFC) pic.twitter.com/MvAUK6PPIE

— USA TODAY (@USATODAY) June 9, 2016

To put it in simpler terms, the Arctic Ocean had more than three Californias less sea ice than it did during the average Mays between the years 1981 to 2010.

Why does this average coverage of sea ice even matter? It matters because it could mean new lows for the lowest amount of sea ice ever observed by the end of summer in September. The previous record of lowest sea ice was way back in September 2012, and with May's average being that low, we can expect even warmer weather in September.

Through this warming weather, USA Today noted that scientists discovered the first ever link between melting ice in Greenland to a phenomenon that is known to warm the area faster than the rest of the northern hemisphere. This occurrence, called "Arctic amplification" wasn't linked to the icy country until lately. The phenomenon was fueled even more due to a feedback loop where rising temperatures are melting the Arctic sea ice, leaving dark open water to absorb more warmth from the sun - and in doing so, warming up the earth even more.

The amount of sea ice have been shrinking over the last few decades through man-made global warming, and the ice, according to Discover Magazine, has already been taking big hits from the ocean due to the heat flowing in the Atlantic, as well as other warm southern winds.