How do ice caps melt?

Answer 1

Ice caps melt because of the suns rays. When the suns rays touch the ice on the ice caps they reflect off which doesn't do much but because of greenhouse gases, the infrared is bounced back to the ice as heat which then bounces of again. This cycle keeps happening until the heat that touches the ice caps finally melts it.

Answer 2

The polar ice cap is melting for a number of reasons, not just one. There are a number of oil wells in the arctic ocean. Instead of collecting the natural gas, they are burning it. That creates a lot of soot. The soot gets on the ice making it darker. When the sun shines on the ice, it melts. Part of the problem comes from lakes caused by melting permafrost. The melting permafrost is releasing a tremendous amount of methane. This methane is a greenhouse gas that produces a tremendous amount of heat. It literally heats up the arctic. It is mainly being produced in Siberia, perhaps from over logging. With the soot on the snow and the methane, the Arctic ice is melting. When it melts, it exposes the water in the Arctic Ocean. The White Ice Cap reflects sunlight. The water in the Arctic Ocean absorbs sunlight. When the sun shines on the water in the Arctic ocean it heats it up. So those three items, oil well burn off, Siberian tree cutting, and sunshine on water can explain Arctic ice cap melting. Of course other things might influence it. There is the possibility that it is also influenced by global warming caused by desertification, air pollution, loss of tropical and temperate glaciers, carbon dioxide, and other things.

Answer 3

The Arctic has seen melting the past several yeas due to solar insolation. The antarctic has not seen this ice loss because the tilt of the planet has caused ice loss in the north and gain in the south.

This process cycles. In the future we will start to see ice loss in the Southern Hemisphere and gain in the northern. See Milankovich effect for more information.