Arctic sea ice could break apart completely at the North Pole this year, allowing ships to sail over the normally frozen top of the world.
The potential landmark thaw – the first time in human history the pole would be ice-free – is a stark sign of global warming, according to an article Friday on the web site of the The Independent, a London newspaper.
“Symbolically it is hugely important,” said Mark Serreze of the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center in Colorado. “There is supposed to be ice at the North Pole, not open water.”
Last year, the fabled Northwest Passage opened as Arctic ice retreated more than ever before.
There is no land at the North Pole, but as long as anyone has looked, it has remained a giant block of ice year-round. Scientists have been watching Arctic sea ice melt more and more each year. But each summer in recent years, the amount of ice has gotten thinner and thinner. Each winter’s freeze, therefore, results in a thinner pack that, this summer, could melt altogether.
“The issue is that, for the first time that I am aware of, the North Pole is covered with extensive first-year ice,” Serreze is quoted by The Independent. “I’d say it’s even-odds whether the North Pole melts out.”
Russia and other countries, meanwhile, have been arguing over who has rights to the region’s resources, including potential oil reserves.
Several studies in recent years have predicted that the North Pole could be ice-free within a few decades. Alarm has ratcheted up every summer as the ice gets thinner and thinner. In a study released June 10, scientist said the rapid meltoff in the Arctic could threaten permafrost in continental soil elsewhere above the Arctic circle in a warm version of the snowball effect.
Last summer saw a record melt of Arctic sea ice, which shrank to more than 30 percent below its average. Around the peak of the melt, in September, air temperatures over land in the western Arctic from August to October were more than 4 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) above the 1978-2006 average.
“The rapid loss of sea ice can trigger widespread changes that would be felt across the region,” said Andrew Slater, also of the National Snow and Ice Data Center.
Tags: Biology, Earth, Global Warming, Greenhouse Gases, North Pole, Politics
June 27, 2008 at 12:58 pm |
I guess it kinda figures that the whole world is slowly melting and all people seem to be worried about is exploiting the “potential oil reserves”.. We can live without oil. We can’t however live without an earth. (well…not everybody can move yet
)
Heck I think some want it to melt so we can get more crude oil and they can get more profit, thus destroying ourselves even more.
July 1, 2008 at 10:27 am |
The north pole ice doesn’t gets very thick. In 1959 the USS Skate pushed its conning tower through the ice at the north pole. There is a pic @ http://www.navsource.org/archives/08/08578.htm These types of articles are using a lack of comparison to sway an opinion. How long have we been measuring north pole ice thickness? Cook didn’t claim to reach the pole until 1908. So we have less than 100 years of data. The earth’s cycles are in terms of millenia not centuries. Do you think hydrocarbon emmisions of man are warming mars too! The earth may be warming, but the media trap and spreading uninformed masses that man caused global warming, will go down in history as the greatest arrogance humans have ever been able to conjure.
July 1, 2008 at 2:27 pm |
You do have a good point. We’ve only started paying attention to it recently, and it takes a looooooooong time to change. It is hard to tell because as you said we don’t have a particularly large chronology of it. We do know that ice ages and climate changes have happened before, but that’s about all anyone has to go on.
However I don’t think it’s a total myth. Even if this is a cyclic climate change, humans certainly have the ability to speed it up and influence it. For me there’s no doubt that hydrocarbons and the like cloud up the atmosphere and trap heat. Maybe a little bit isn’t so bad. But when you factor in the massive amount of cars, power plants and plain old gunk from factories being released, all over the world – every day – the results can increase exponentially.
As for Mars being warmer as well, maybe there are changes going on outside our planet. The sun could be warmer, maybe the universe is changing. Things out of our control, and for the most part out of our ability to notice scientifically.
I agree about the media thing. We don’t get informed anymore, we get shown a carnival.
July 2, 2008 at 4:10 pm |
I agree as well.