All of Arctic ice could melt, disappear in 2008

Global warming is hitting hard the North Pole, the Arctic, and scientists are preparing for the possibility when, instead of a vast expanse of snow, the North Pole is a vast expanse of water in 2008.

“The set-up for this summer is disturbing,” ABC Television quoted Mark Serreze, of the United States National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), as saying.

A number of factors have, in 2008, led to most of the Arctic ice being thin and vulnerable as it enters its summer melting season, Serreze added.

It was in September 2007 that the ice in the Arctic Sea reached a record low, opening up the famous North-West passage that runs from Greenland to Alaska.

What is worse, the ABC report went on, is that the extent of the ice is only half the picture. Satellite images show that most of the Arctic ice at the moment is thin – young ice that has only been around since last autumn.

And, thin ice is far more vulnerable than thick ice that has piled up over several years, making Mark Serreze to elaborate on the fearsome possibility thus: “There is this thin, first-year ice even at the North Pole at the moment. This raises the spectre – the possibility that you could become ice-free at the North Pole this year.”

“Despite its news value in the media,” Serreze went on, “the North Pole being ice-free is not in itself significant. To scientists, this is just another point on the globe. What is worrying, though, is the fact that multi-year ice – the stuff that doesn’t melt in the summer – is not piling up as fast as Arctic ice generally is melting.”

On an average, each year about half of the first-year ice – formed between September and March – melts during the following summer. In 2007, nearly all of the first-year ice disappeared.

In addition, Mark Serreze told ABC Television, an atmospheric phenomenon known as the Arctic oscillation kicked into its strong, “positive” phase this winter. This is known to generate winds, which push multi-year ice out of the Arctic along the east coast of Greenland.

Meanwhile, the Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail quoted a report released by the World Wildlife Fund on April 24, 2008: “The changes observed recently are happening at rates significantly faster than predicted.
The melting of Arctic sea ice and the Greenland ice sheet is found to be severely accelerated, now even prompting the expert scientists to discuss whether both may be close to their ‘tipping point.”

Michael T Klare, a professor of peace and world-security studies at Hampshire College, located in Amherst, Massachusetts, the United States, was quoted by The Globe and Mail as saying: “The impacts of global warming and the resulting Arctic thaw will be profound. Global warming will affect resource competition and conflict profoundly in coming years. While the effects of global warming cannot be predicted with certainty, it is likely to produce diminished rainfall in many parts of the world, leading to a rise in desertification in these areas and a decline in their ability to sustain agriculture, which may, in turn, force people to fight over remaining sources of water and arable land, or to migrate in large numbers to other areas, where their presence may be resented by the existing inhabitants.”

“Global warming,” according to Klare, “is expected to produce a significant rise in global sea levels, and this will lead to the inundation of low-lying coastal areas around the world, resulting in the widespread loss of agricultural lands, forcing many millions of people to migrate to higher areas, possibly encountering resistance in the process.”