Towards the end, it will experience some of the single-year ice - ice that would not normally be expected to survive summer conditions.
The latest findings show that virtually all the ice surveyed is what is called first-year ice, ice that only grew this past winter, as opposed to tougher multi-year ice which survives the warmth of summer.
Hansen suggested that a 10-year doubling time was plausible, pointing out that such a doubling time from a base of 1 mm per year ice sheet contribution to sea level in the decade 2005-2015 would lead to a cumulative 5-metre sea-level rise by 2095.
Each year I guide ski expeditions across the pack ice to the North Geographic Pole and each year brings new surprises -- severe storms rarely seen in these parts, vast tracts of first-year ice where there should be years of accumulation, pack ice drifting faster and farther than ever before.
Scientists compare annual accumulation to the volume of ice lost to sea each year to calculate the ice sheet's overall mass balance and its contribution to sea level rise.
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To assess the contribution from melting ice sheets, scientists try to measure "mass balance, " which is the difference between the annual snow that falls on the permanent ice sheets each year, and the total mass of ice that melts or breaks off the sheets.
The plan envisions turning the 1917 building into a year-round ice-sports hub, attracting both hobbyists and professionals.
But since it has been largely covered with year-round ice throughout modern history, it is the least mapped ocean.
Already China has built a new road, giving its landlocked Jilin and Heilongjiang provinces efficient access to Rajin, Asia's most northerly year-round ice-free port.
With his close friend since freshman year, MIT ice hockey player Helen Greiner, and their professor, Rodney Brooks, Angle formed Irobot in 1990, naming it in homage to the 1950 novel by Isaac Asimov.
Sweetwater isn't the first company to pin its hopes on leveraging ethanol, so it shouldn't be too much of a surprise that sound business strategy wasn't enough to seal the deal in this year's ICE competition.
But it is also possible that one or other of them will win through, with a significant effect on this year's summer ice.
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Previous estimates suggesting depletion rates as high as 50 billion tons of ice per year were exaggerated by a plus-or-minus 20 billion ton error.
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The company has diversified, making new products, and winning a three year contract to supply ice cream to all the hospitals and nursing homes in Northern Ireland.
The hosts hit back, though, and enjoyed a spell of mounting pressure late on, with 22-year-old Canadian ice hockey pin-up Crosby narrowing the gap to 4-3 on a power play with four minutes left.
Modernity, they proudly and not uncontroversially say, has arrived in this backward region in the form of an engineering miracle that has laid tracks on land gripped year-round by ice, a railway line at higher altitude than any other in the world.
The flights are part of "Operation Ice Bridge, " a six-year plan described as the largest ever airborne survey of ice at Earth's poles.
And what better time of year to break out the ice cream machine than now, during peak tomato season?
Merely introducing a few flavors of soup or ice cream each year isn't going to cut it, Wesdorp says.
Each year, the Arctic sea ice reaches its minimum extent in September.
Now, see, that's diplomacy -- (laughter) -- right there for an 11-year-old to sacrifice ice cream to shake the hand appropriately of a fellow ambassador.
Glaciers at altitudes below 5, 400m have lost about 1.35m in ice thickness per year since the late 1970s, twice the rate of the larger, high-altitude glaciers.
Violinist Vanessa-Mae has put her musical career on ice for a year in a bid to ski for Thailand at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.
The year also saw Arctic sea ice hit a record low in more than 30 years of satellite observations and studies that found the world's major ice sheets have been shrinking at an increasing rate.
It claimed six more in skeleton (revived as an Olympic sport this year) and short-track ice-skating (added in 1994).
Recruiting practices that have been on ice for the last year and a half are coming back, particularly sign-on bonuses.
The council blamed "exceptional levels of rain last year, followed by snow and ice", which caused damage "across the country".
The warming trend means that, every year, there is less old ice and more new ice that has formed in the winter just past.
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