Ice in Arctic Sea Melting Faster Than Expected - as part of the news series by GeoBeats.

Some of the ice in the Arctic Sea stays frozen through the summer, but the rate of melting ice is reportedly 50 percent higher than previously thought. The findings resulted from a study done by scientists in the United Kingdom who looked at data from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s IceSat satellite and the European Space Agency’s CryoSat-2 satellite. If current trends continue, the Arctic Ocean might have no ice during the summer in a matter of years, creating an opportunity to exploit oil, minerals, and fish reserves.

The BBC reports that some ice north of Greenland has decreased in thickness from up to 6 meters a decade ago to approximately 3 meters last year. Another shocking statistic indicates that there was roughly 13,000 cubic kilometers of summer sea ice in the Arctic in 2004, and the 2012 measurements show only 7,000 cubic kilometers. Professor Chris Rapley from the University College London said: "The Arctic is particularly vulnerable to the impact of global warming. Temperatures there are rising far faster than they are at the equator.”