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Arctic Melt Earths North and South Poles are famous for being cold and icy. Last year, however, the amount of ice in the Arctic Ocean fell to a record low1. Since 1979, each decade has seen an 11.4 percent drop in end-of-summer ice cover2. Between 1981 and 2000, ice in the Arctic lost 22 percent of its thickness -- becoming 1.13 meters thinner. There may be several reasons for the ice melt, says Jinlun Zhang, an oceanographer at the University of Washington3 in Seattle. Unusually strong winds blew through the Arctic last summer. The winds pushed much of the ice out of the central Arctic, leaving a large area of thin ice and open water4. With both air and water getting warmer, the ice is melting from both above and below. In some parts of the Beaufort Sea6, north of Alaska and western Canada, ice that measured 3.3m thick at the beginning of the summer measured just 50 centimeters by seasons end. Some scientists fear that the Arctic is stuck in a warming trend from which it may never recover. Arctic n.北极，北极圈;adj.北极的 注释 ice cover: 冰覆盖量 open water: 没有冰覆盖的海面 the Beaufort Sea: 波弗特海，是北冰洋边缘海，位于美国阿拉斯加州东北岸和加拿大 西北岸，海中岛屿稀少，有无岛海之称。 | 
