Rome, Feb 13 : An international team of scientists has discovered that Arctic sea ice volume has decreased by 36 percent during autumn and 9 percent during winter between 2003 and 2012.

Satellite records showed a constant downward trend in the area covered by Arctic sea ice during all seasons, in particular in summers.

The past 6 years have seen the lowest summer ice extent in the past 30 years, reaching the lowest last September at about 3.61 million sq km European Space Agency reported.

The team of scientists led by University College London has now generated estimates of the volume of the sea-ice for the 2010-11 and 2011-12 winters over the Arctic basin using data from ESA's CryoSat satellite.

The new CryoSat dataset shows that since 2008, the Arctic has lost about 4300 cubic km of ice during the autumn and about 1500 cubic km in winter.

The team confirmed CryoSat estimates using independent ground and airborne measurements carried out by ESA and international scientists during the last two years in the Arctic, as well as by comparing measurements from NASA's Operation IceBridge.

The study has been published online in Geophysical Research Letters. (ANI)