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Melt Study Says Arctic Ocean Could Be Ice-Free by 2012.
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by Rob Walker | December 12, 2007 at 08:07 am
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If this isn't enough proof, I don't know what is. The fact that the arctic ocean could be *completely* ice free by 2012 is a scary thought. Imagine if your kids don't know what an iceberg is, aside from one taking out the titanic over a hundred years ago.
An already relentless melting of the Arctic greatly accelerated this summer, a warning sign that some scientists worry could mean global warming has passed an ominous tipping point. One even speculated that summer sea ice would be gone in five years.Greenland's ice sheet melted nearly 19 billion tons more than the previous high mark, and the volume of Arctic sea ice at summer's end was half what it was just four years earlier, according to new NASA satellite data obtained by The Associated Press.
"The Arctic is screaming," said Mark Serreze, senior scientist at the government's snow and ice data center in Boulder, Colo.
Just last year, two top scientists surprised their colleagues by projecting that the Arctic sea ice was melting so rapidly that it could disappear entirely by the summer of 2040.
This week, after reviewing his own new data, NASA climate scientist Jay Zwally said: "At this rate, the Arctic Ocean could be nearly ice-free at the end of summer by 2012, much faster than previous predictions."
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Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (4)
at 10:08 on December 12th, 2007
A lone iceberg in the sea near Nordauslet
at 03:20 on December 16th, 2007
This picture was taken from a friend of mine during his trip along the western coast of Greenland, starting from Nuuk (his hometown) and going north to the Disco bay, Ilulissat where a lot of pieces of glaical ice breaks off in pieces sometimes towering more than 100-200 meters above sealevel and being many times larger under water. I have some more pictures showing a medium sized ship besides one of those acient blocks of ice and will post it. Those blocks of ice could easily be made of water more than 10.000 years ago.
This picture illustrate the magnificent light you will se both in the northern parts of Iceland and Greenland, when summertime arrives and the sun never really dissapears but just hangs there in the horizon or just underneath.
gaffri has contributed a photo to this story.
at 15:10 on December 19th, 2007
Actually some economist believes that if the Northpole becomes icefree trade will flurish and shipping companies will have a new shortcut from europe to the westcoast of america and the eastern parts of asia.
So besides the pros and cons of ice free north pole an oil race will probably emerge, and has already negun between Alaska, Canada, USA, Russia and Denmark and a international court has to decide who owns the "North Pole" (it does sound absurd to talk about owning the North Pole! Icefree enviroment will trigger more oil drilling and ships traffic. Imagine a oil tanker "doing a Titanic" it would be catastrofical more than it alreade is with Polar Bears habitats literally melting away!
at 05:31 on July 9th, 2009
By raising the sea level, were gonna see more hurricanes during the summer because water will store more energy from the sun by the quantity increased. The opposite is also thrue, then the winter will be more difficult then the past the water should be lesser salted, then this fact will cause water without salt freeze more easily then the opposite. By some physic laws, water should be increased at the equator, for the simply answer following, the "contrifuge" force. There so many facts that we could seriously considert, that is impossible to know what will happen at this time... no more anticyclone from the north?