LONDON, Oct. 15 (Xinhua) -- New data released on Thursday by the Catlin Arctic Survey and the conservation group WWF provided further evidence that the Arctic Ocean sea ice is thinning and that the Ocean will be largely ice-free during summer within a decade.

    These findings have been analyzed by the Polar Ocean Physics Group at the University of Cambridge, led by Professor Peter Wadhams, one of the world's leading experts on sea ice cover in the North Pole region.

    "With a larger part of the region now first year ice, it is clearly more vulnerable," said Professor Wadhams. "The area is now more likely to become open water each summer, bringing forward the potential date when the summer sea ice will be completely gone."

    Wadhams said the Catlin Arctic Survey data supported the new consensus view -- based on seasonal variation of ice extent and thickness, changes in temperatures, winds and especially ice composition -- that the Arctic will be ice-free in summer within about 20 years, and that much of the decrease will be happening within 10 years.

    According to the scientists who have studied the data, the technique used by the explorers to take measurements on the surface of the ice has the potential to help ice modellers to refine predictions about the future survival or decline of the ice.

    Catlin Arctic Survey expedition leader Pen Hadow said "this is the kind of scientific work we always wanted to support by getting to places in the Arctic which are otherwise nearly impossible to reach for research purposes."

    "It's what modern exploration should be doing. Our on-the-ice techniques are helping scientists to understand better what is going on in this fragile ecosystem.," Hadow said.

    At the unveiling of the results in London, Martin Sommerkorn from WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature) International Arctic Program, which partnered with the Survey, said the arctic sea ice holds a central position in our Earth's climate system, adding that "Take it out of the equation and we are left with a dramatically warmer world."

    Such a loss of Arctic sea ice cover has recently been assessed to set in motion powerful climate feedbacks which will have an impact far beyond the Arctic itself -- self perpetuating cycles, amplifying and accelerating the consequences of global warming.

    "This could lead to flooding affecting one-quarter of the world's population, substantial increases in greenhouse gas emissions from massive carbon pools and extreme global weather changes," Sommerkorn said.

    The findings provide yet another urgent call for action to world leaders ahead of the UN climate summit in Copenhagen this December to rapidly and effectively curb global greenhouse gas emissions, with rich countries committing to reduce emissions by 40 percent by 2020.

    British Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband reacted to the report, saying that the study set out the stark realities of a rapidly changing climate and illustrates the risk of an ice free summer in the Arctic in the not-too-distant future.

    "This further strengthens the case for an ambitious global deal in Copenhagen in December which Britain is fully committed to achieving," Miliband said.