North Pole Could Be Ice Free

North Pole Web Cam photo. Credit: NOAA/Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory. The NOAA/PMEL's North Pole web cam deployment began in April 2002 and operate during the summer warmth and daylight (April-October) and are redeployed each Spring. The images from the cameras track the North Pole snow cover, weather conditions . . . for more updated images and info, http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/gallery_np.html

A North Pole without ice? There's a 50-50 chance that the North Pole will be ice-free this summer, which would be a first in recorded history . . .

The weather and ocean conditions in the next couple of weeks will determine how much of the sea ice will melt, and early signs are not good, said Mark Serreze, senior researcher at the National Snow and Ice Data Center and research professor in geography at the University of Colorado, Boulder, Colo.

"A large area at the North Pole and surrounding the North Pole is first-year ice," Prof. Serreze said. "That's the stuff that tends to melt out in the summer because it's thin."

A more conservative ice scientist, Cecilia Bitz, at the University of Washington, put the odds of an ice-free North Pole closer to 1 in 4. Even that is far worse than climate models had predicted, which was 1 in 70 some time in the next decade, she said.

"I would guess within the next 10 years, it would happen at least once," Prof. Bitz said.


» Source: The Globe and Mail/AP