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June 27, 2008

No ice at the North Pole?

Danny Huddleston
The UK's Independent has an article on climate change with the headline: "Exclusive: No ice at the North Pole". At first glance this is very distressing, but let's take a closer look.
It seems unthinkable, but for the first time in human history, ice is on course to disappear entirely from the North Pole this year.

The disappearance of the Arctic sea ice, making it possible to reach the Pole sailing in a boat through open water, would be one of the most dramatic - and worrying - examples of the impact of global warming on the planet. Scientists say the ice at 90 degrees north may well have melted away by the summer.

Wait a minute: "ice is on course to disappear"..."may well have melted away by summer". Oh I get it, the ice is still there. That title was a little misleading. As we read on there are more examples of backtracking:
"Seasoned polar scientists believe the chances of a totally ice free North Pole this summer are greater than 50:50"[...]

"I'd say it's even-odds whether the North Pole melts out," said Dr Serreze." [...]

"We'll see what happens, a great deal depends on the weather patterns in July and August," [...]

Ron Lindsay, a polar scientist at the University of Washington in Seattle, agreed that much now depends on what happens to the Arctic weather in terms of wind patterns and hours of sunshine. "There's a good chance that it will all melt away at the North Pole, it's certainly feasible, but it's not guaranteed," Dr Lindsay said.

Let's get back to the science:
"From the viewpoint of science, the North Pole is just another point on the globe, but symbolically it is hugely important. There is supposed to be ice at the North Pole, not open water," said Mark Serreze of the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Colorado.

So, if it is symbolically hugely important does that mean realistically it is not that important?

Looking at the map included with the article you can see that the thick multi year ice is only around 150 miles away from the North Pole. So why isn't that thick ice where it should be, under the North Pole? Did it melt away due to global warming? No apparently not. In the article we find this statement: " the normally thick ice formed over many years at the Pole has been blown away". No mention made of volcanic activity under the ice cap, either.

What we have here is a serendipitous event for the global warming believers. Winds have blown the thick multi year ice from under that small dot on the map called the North Pole. Next year the ice may float back the other way and the story will fade away. But by then another climate crisis story will take it's place in the mainstream media.

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