Arctic Ice Cap Rebounds, But Scientists Say It Could Disappear Within This Century [Video]

Talk about global warming and climate change has been all the rage, and while both sides of the debate can argue their points until their voices are hoarse, there's no denying that the Arctic ice cap is smaller than it usually is. A new NASA observation study reveals that the 2013 Arctic ice cap at its minimum is the sixth smallest recorded size for the North Pole, and while it has bounced back from a record low in 2012, the long-term outlook looks dire. 

Satellite data from the NASA-supported National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado in Boulder shows that the Arctic ice cap receded to its smallest size Sept. 13. At that point, the ice cap measured in at 1.97 million square miles. This is the sixth lowest figure ever recorded for the Arctic ice cap and 432,000 square miles lower than the average ice cap minimum size from 1981-2010. The 2013 figures are almost 50 percent higher than the record low in 2012, when the summer minimum of the Arctic ice cap fell to 1.32 million square miles.

"I was expecting that this year would be higher than last year," said Walt Meier, a glaciologist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "There is always a tendency to have an uptick after an extreme low; in our satellite data, the Arctic sea ice has never set record low minimums in consecutive years."

The reason for this year's ice cap expansion lays in the weather patterns affecting the Arctic. Temperatures were 1.8 to 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit lower than average, and a series of summer cyclones helped induce a low pressure zone over the Arctic. Typically, in high-pressure situations, the skies become clearer, and the ice more condensed, leading to enhanced melting.

While the findings are encouraging, NASA does state that the 2013 ice cap is thinner and slushier, meaning it will melt faster.

"Thinner ice melts completely at a faster rate than thicker ice does, so if the average thickness of Arctic sea ice goes down, it's more likely that the extent of the summer ice will go down as well," said Joey Comiso, senior scientist at Goddard. "At the rate we're observing this decline, it's very likely that the Arctic's summer sea ice will completely disappear within this century."