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22 August 2018The Arctic's thickest and oldest sea ice, north of Greenland, broke for the first time this summer, due to the hot winds and heat waves that affected the northern hemisphere. The phenomenon, never observed before, has been immortalized by satellite images, and has led scientists to raise the alarm for the polar bear.

The sea above Greenland is defined as "the last frozen area" and "the last bastion" against climate change and the melting of ice. But this year, for two times, the sea ice has come off and the waters have opened up, in an event never seen since the seventies, that is since the satellite recordings are available.

One of @ NASAEarth's field campaigns is getting up close with Greenland's melting ice. This week's greenhouse is melting its glaciers. See how: https://t.co/we8OKM301F pic.twitter.com/Fsy4ERIkpV

- NASA (@NASA) 22 August 2018



"In the past most of the sea ice in the Arctic was a multi-year, but now almost all of it is reformed every year. The only area in which the multi-year ice has remained is north of Greenland, but this last bastion has come off and moves away from the he says "pushed by the winds," said Peter Wadhams, head of the Polar Ocean Physics Group at the University of Cambridge, to the British newspaper Independent.

The phenomenon could have "serious" consequences for the local fauna and in particular for the white bear, which on the sea ice hunts, even if the risk can be assessed only next spring.

"Polar bears dig holes in the snow and in spring they go out to hunt. If the ice has moved to the open sea, they remain without a hunting area," explained Wadhams. The bears, in fact, "cannot swim very far. If the distance from the coast becomes a permanent feature, they would no longer have the sea ice on which to hunt. They would lose their habitat".