The ice-albedo feedback is the system in which snow and ice reflects back more sunlight and heat than other surfaces, therefore cooling an area, but when this ice melts it in turns is reflecting less heat back. So when the ice melts in an area such as the Arctic it will inevitably cause more ice to melt, because more heat will get trapped in the area than before and cause a trend of ice melting. Not only can heat from the sun cause this effect, but also human heating and other processes of creating heat can cause ice to melt and lead to more ice melting.
Source:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate-change/guide/science/explained/feedbacks
Figure 1: This separates the latitudes into three regions. At the higher latitudes you see a constant polar season, where the temperature is cooler, opposed to the central tropic region where it is consistently wet and dry and warm.
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