Beware pancake ice

I hope that the current economic crisis will not deflect the world's polititians from the mission to prevent climate change.

A report in nature magazine says that a new species of ice is invading the Artic.It is called pancake ice and the magazine explains that

In the past, Arctic waters have been dominated by thick slabs of sea ice that last from one year to the next. But sea-ice cover is diminishing and thick ice that lasts for several years is disappearing fast, with researchers seeing a greater proportion of thin, newly formed ice.

and the consequence of this

Because the pancakes are round, for example, they have areas of open water between them when joined up, making the surface darker overall. This could have a warming effect as a result of less of the Sun's radiation being reflected. Water also slops up from these holes over the ice so that falling snow melts rather than settling, keeping the surface darker.

Ht-Mother Jones