Study - Each 1F Increase During 6-Year Study = 15 Cubic Miles Of Additional Melt From Can. Glaciers

EDIT

During the period of the study, from 2004 until 2009, the melting ice of the archipelago added about 1 millimeter to world sea level. The water lost equaled 75 percent of the volume of water in Lake Erie, Gardner said. Unlike Alaska glaciers, which are more tied to precipitation and temperature as they grow and shrink, the far-north Canada glaciers are slaved to air temperatures.

"It's a polar desert up there -- there's not much snowfall in winter," Wolken said. "It's really changes in air temperature that dictate what's going on." Record warmth in the latter period of the study led to the drastic increase in melting. "During the six years of our study, every 1-degree Celsius increase in temperature resulted in an additional 15 cubic miles of melt (each summer) from the ice cap," Wolken said.

University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute glaciologist Regine Hock said the results published in the Nature paper agree with a study she had published earlier this year.

"It is great work," she wrote in an e-mail. "The paper seems sound and the message clear. I do agree with the conclusions, which nicely complement our January paper where we find that the Canadian Arctic (will be) a major contributor (to sea-level rise) over the next 100 years."

EDIT

http://www.adn.com/2011/05/07/1850644/northern-canada-glaciers-are-melting.html