“The North Pole will turn into an open sea during summer within a decade, according to a team of explorers who trekked through the Arctic for three months
Their findings show that most of the ice in the region is first-year ice around 6 feet deep and will melt next summer.”
October 14, 2009
Explorers: North Pole summers ice free in 10 years – The Mercury News
“The Arctic will be largely ice-free during the summer within a decade, according to new evidence collected by Pen Hadow and his team.
By Louise Gray and Louisegray 15 October 2009 • 7:00am
Pen Hadow took more than 1,500 measurements of sea ice
The average thickness of ice floes was 1.8 metres
An analysis by Cambridge University has concluded that the Arctic is now melting at such a rate that it will be largely ice free within ten years, allowing ships to cross the Arctic Ocean.
Further analysis by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) warned that the “irreversible trend” will cause dangerous feedback because water absorbs more heat from the sun than ice, therefore further speeding up the global warming process”
Arctic will be ice-free in a decade, according to Pen Hadow
Here is the same story from 1958
“Some scientists estimate that the polar ice pack is 40 per cent thinner and 12 per cent less in area than it was a half-century ago, and that even within the lifetime of our children the Arctic Ocean may open, enabling ships to sail over the North Pole,”
Although the idea that a solid ice sheet covers the central Arctic has lingered stubbornly in the popular fancy, the northern cap of ice worn by our planet is actually a thin crust on the whole, only about seven feet thick—over an ocean two miles deep in places.”
TimesMachine: October 19, 1958 – NYTimes.com
There has been no trend in Arctic sea ice over the past seventeen years, and the ice is still about two meters thick.
ftp://osisaf.met.no/prod_test/ice/index/v2p2/nh/osisaf_nh_sie_daily.txt
