What is this due to? Warm currents from the interior?
Dharma/Dean
···
North Pole ice 'turns to water'
BBC News Online
August 2000Arctic ice has become a mile-wide ocean, say scientists An American
scientist says the ice cap at the North Pole has melted.Dr James McCarthy, an oceanographer, says he found a mile-wide stretch
of open ocean on a recent trip to the pole.Some experts say the ice cover could disappear altogether by the end of
the 21st century.They point to it as further evidence of global warming - but other
scientists say movements in polar ice regularly create gaps in the ice
cap - including at the North Pole itself.Dr McCarthy told the New York Times newspaper that he found the new
patch of ocean during a trip earlier in August on board a Russian
icebreaker."It was totally unexpected," he said.
Another scientist on the cruise, palaeontologist Dr Malcolm C McKenna,
said the ship was able to sail all the way to the North Pole through
only a thin crust of ice, and arrived on the spot to discover no ice at
all."I don't know if anybody in history ever got to 90 degrees north to be
greeted by water, not ice," Dr McKenna was quoted as saying."Some folks who pooh-pooh global warming might wake up if shown that
even the pole is beginning to melt at least sometimes."Ivory gulls
The lecturers say the ice cap in the whole area was so thin that the
ship had to sail for another 10 kilometres (six miles) to find ice thick
enough for the tourists to leave the boat and walk on the ice cap, as
they had been promised.The party also saw ivory gulls flying overhead, which ornithologists say
is a first for the area.Dr McCarthy, who is working on studies for the Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change (IPCC), says has previously found the North Pole
covered in some 3 metres (9 feet) of ice during the summer.Shrinking
Despite the lack of agreement over whether the North Pole stretch of
water was as a result of melting or ice movement, scientists do agree
that the ice cap in general is shrinking.Satellite studies have already suggested that the ice cover in the
Arctic has thinned by more than 40% over the past 50 years.Some scientists say it could disappear altogether by the end of the 21st
century.Campaigners want tougher controls on pollution to try to slow down the
global warming which they say is causing the changes.===========================================
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