The Arctic Ocean could be largely ice-free and open to shipping during the summer in as little as ten years’ time, a top polar specialist has said.
“It’s like man is taking the lid off the northern part of the planet,” said Professor Peter Wadhams, from the University of Cambridge.
Professor Wadhams has been studying the Arctic ice since the 1960s.
He was speaking in central London at the launch of the findings of the Catlin Arctic Survey.
The expedition trekked across 435km of ice earlier this year.
The survey route – to the north of Canada – had been expected to cross areas of older “multi-year” ice which is thicker and more resilient.
When the ridges of ice between floes are included, the expedition found an average thickness of 4.8m.
Professor Wadhams said: “The Catlin Arctic Survey data supports the new consensus view – based on seasonal variation of ice extent and thickness, changes in temperatures, winds and especially ice composition – that the Arctic will be ice-free in summer within about 20 years, and that much of the decrease will be happening within 10 years.
“That means you’ll be able to treat the Arctic as if it were essentially an open sea in the summer and have transport across the Arctic Ocean.”
According to Professor Wadhams, faster shipping and easier access to oil and gas reserves were among short-term benefits of the melting.
But in the longer-term, losing a permanent feature of the planet risked accelerated warming, changing patterns of circulation in the oceans and atmosphere, and having unknown effects on ecosystems through the acidification of waters.
Pen Hadow said he was shocked by the image of how “in my lifetime we’re looking at changing how the planet looks from space.”
He also described how polar explorers were having to change their methods from the days when sledges could be pulled by dogs over the ice.
“Dogs can swim but they can’t tow a sledge through water which is what’s needed now.”
“Now we have to wear immersion suits and swim and we need sledges that can float. I can foresee needing sledges that are more like canoes that you also pull over the ice.”
This to me is quite a shocking article. I know that often the awareness of environmental issues is sometimes ignored due to other news about worldly events but this is possibly the most frightening I have heard in a long time.
Often we are ignorant in our defense that “It will not effect our generation” or that in many cases it is not near enough for us to be concerned about. But the fact that the second largest range of ice on our planet is now going to disappear during the summer not only shocks but appalls me. Man is going to pillage and plunge the rare oil resource like a leech sucking blood.
What then? The Antarctic? Mankind may be the most intelligent and dominant species this planet has ever seen yet it is also the most destructive.
