Experts say that the Arctic sea ice is melting (融化) quite faster than expected and it can affect not just the region, but Earth in general. A scientist even says that next year, or maybe the year after that, the Arctic will be free of ice.

　　Peter Wadhams, a scientist, said that the melting trend led to his statement. “Most people expect this year will see a record low in the Arctic’s summer sea-ice cover. Next year or the year after that, I think it will be free of ice in summer and by that I mean the central Arctic will be ice-free,” Peter Wadhams, director of the Scott Polar Institute in Cambridge, said in an interview with the Guardian. “You will be able to cross over the North Pole by ship,” Peter Wadhams added. He strongly believes that although some pieces of ice will remain, the Arctic basin may be free of sea ice in the next two years starting in the summer of 2017.

　　Wadhams’ study says that melting sea ice will have a great influence on the planet since the sea ice is more capable of reflecting (反射) sunlight compared to water that can only reflect 10% of the sunlight. Once the sea ice melts, the water can only reflect a small amount of sunlight. This means that the Earth will receive and absorb more sunlight, making the planet even hotter.

　　The year 2016 has already broken records of the hottest temperature ever recorded and the trend doesn’t seem to show any decrease in global warming. “It doesn’t look like the ice is healing and growing back,” Tom Wagner, NASA’s manager for cryosphere (冰冻圈) research said in a statement.

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