A new analysis of changing conditions in the region published in Friday’s edition of the journal Geophysical Research Letters concludes Arctic sea ice is melting so fast most of it could be gone in 30 years.

The new report by Muyin Wang of the Joint Institute for the Study of Atmosphere and Ocean and James E. Overland of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, projects the area covered by summer sea ice to decline from about 2.8 million square miles normally to 620,000 square miles within 30 years.

Last year’s summer minimum was 1.8 million square miles in September, second lowest only to 2007 which had a minimum of 1.65 million square miles, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC).

A change in the amount of ice is important because the white surface reflects sunlight back into space. When ice is replaced by dark ocean water that sunlight can be absorbed, warming the water and increasing the warming of the planet. Wang explained in a statement:

The Arctic is often called the Earth’s refrigerator because the sea ice helps cool the planet by reflecting the sun’s radiation back into space. With less ice, the sun’s warmth is instead absorbed by the open water, contributing to warmer temperatures in the water and the air.

The extent of winter sea ice is also declining. NSIDC reports Arctic sea ice reached its winter maximum for this year at 5.8 million square miles on Feb. 28. That was 278,000 square miles below the 1979-2000 average, the fifth lowest on record. The six lowest maxima since 1979 have all occurred in the last six years.

There’s hot news from the Antarctic, too. The European Space Agency reports collapse of the ice bridge supporting Wilkins Ice Shelf appears imminent.

The Wilkins Ice Shelf is at risk of partly breaking away from the Antarctic Peninsula as the ice bridge that connects it to Charcot and Latady Islands looks set to collapse. The beginning of what appears to be the demise of the ice bridge began this week when new rifts forming along its center axis resulted in a large block of ice breaking away.

Many changes occurred to the ice shelf in 2008, as witnessed by Envisat. In late February, 425 sq km of ice calved away, narrowing the ice bridge down to a 6-km strip. At the end of May a 160-sq-km chunk of ice broke away and reduced the ice bridge to just 2.7 km, leaving it only 900 m wide at its narrowest location.

The Wilkins Ice Shelf had been stable for most of the last century before it began retreating in the 1990s.

The Wilkins isn’t the only ice shelf at risk. The Wordie Ice Shelf has been disintegrating since the 1960s and is now gone, and the northern part of the Larsen Ice Shelf no longer exists. More than 3,200 square miles (8,300 square km) have broken off from the Larsen shelf since 1986.

Climate change is to blame, according to the report from the U.S. Geological Survey and the British Antarctic Survey, available at pubs.usgs.gov/imap/2600/B. During the past 50 years, the Antarctic Peninsula has warmed by 2.5°C – far more than the global average.