An Inuit hunter stands on the surface of an iceberg to assess the seascape.

Arctic ice is getting thinner by the day—and sea life is suffering

A new study says the structural change has been abrupt, making life harder for everything from tiny algae to polar bears.

An Inuit hunter stands on sea ice to assess the seascape in Qaanaaq, Greenland. The changing shape of Arctic sea ice will ultimately affect not only sea creatures, but humans who depend on the ice to survive.
Photograph by Paul Nicklen, Nat Geo Image Collection

In April 1895, when famed Norwegian explorer Fridjtof Nansen attempted to mush across the frozen Arctic Ocean to reach the North Pole, he was stopped by endless rows of sea ice ridges. “It was a veritable chaos of ice blocks, stretching as far as the horizon,” wrote Nansen in his expedition account, Farthest North. Dragging a sled over them was “enough to tire out giants.”

The gnarled ice-scape that thwarted Nansen is now largely a thing of the past, according to research reported in Nature on Wednesday. Arctic sea ice has undergone an abrupt, permanent, and consequential change in its structure—from thick and ridged to thin and flat. The shift occurred around 2007, when record-low summer ice cover triggered

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