• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Arctic; Arctic Ocean; Greenland; Sea ice
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.524.2428; http://www.geus.dk/publications/bull/nr10/nr10_p61-64.pdf

The Arctic Ocean is a landlocked basin, at present covered by perennial sea ice. During the past few decades a significant thinning and shrinking of the sea ice has been observed, and modelling studies indicate that the Arctic Ocean ice cover could, by the end of this century, almost disappear from most parts of the Arctic Ocean during peak summer seasons. It remains uncertain, however, whether the environmental changes are an enhanced greenhouse-warming signal or a result of natural (long-term) variability, but palaeoceano-graphic studies can contribute to our understanding of the natural variability of environmental parameters, e.g. sea-ice cover and oceanographic changes on time-scales of centuries to millennia. As part of the multidisciplinary EU project Greenland Arctic Shelf Ice and Climate Experiment (GreenICE), sedi-