Posted on 05/17/2004 11:54:12 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
OTTAWA (Reuters) -
Summer temperatures in the Arctic have risen at an incredible rate over the past three years and large patches of what should be ice are now open water, a British polar explorer said on Monday.
Ben Saunders, forced by the warm weather to abandon an attempt to ski solo from northern Russia across the North Pole to Canada, said he had been amazed at how much of the ice had melted.
"It's obvious to me that things are changing a lot and changing very quickly," a sunburned Saunders told Reuters less than two days after being rescued from the thinning ice sheet close to the North Pole.
"I do know it's happening because that was my third time in the Arctic (in the last three years)," said Saunders, who explored the region in 2001 and 2003.
An international study last year said global warming would melt most of the Arctic icecap in summertime by the end of the century. Many scientists blame the rising temperatures on human emissions of greenhouse gases while others point to what they say are longer-term natural warming and cooling cycles.
"The temperatures were incredibly warm ... I had days when I could ski with no gloves and no hat at all, just in bare hands, because I was too hot," said Saunders.
Logs from an expedition in 2001 showed the average Arctic temperature at this time of year was minus 15 to minus 20 degrees Celsius (plus 5 to minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit).
Saunders said the average temperature this time was just minus 5 to minus 7 degrees Celsius (23 to 19 degrees Fahrenheit).
"I saw open water every single day of the expedition, which is not what I was expecting," said Saunders, who had to don a special thermal suit and drag his sled across open patches of water nine times during the 71 days he spent alone. He covered a total of 965 km (600 miles) before giving up.
"I think a ski crossing from land to land (Russia to Canada) if conditions stay the same -- let alone get any worse -- is impossible," he said.
Saunders had planned to set off from Russia's northernmost Arctic islands in March but instead of ice, he discovered a 70 km (34 mile) open stretch of water. He had to be flown to the closest pack ice.
"The ice was terrible, right from the word go; very smashed up, very few flat areas," he said, adding that the usually impermeable multiyear ice was thinning.
"(It) is becoming less stable and it's breaking up more easily. There are enormous pressure ridges, and enormous areas of what I'd describe as rubble."
Saunders said he had also been struck by the almost complete absence of polar bears on the Russian side.
"That surprised me a lot ... that's historically been a very concentrated area for bears," he said.
"Whereas in 2001 we were attacked by a bear on day two (of the trek) and saw bear tracks nearly every day for the first three weeks, this year I saw four sets of tracks during the entire expedition."
Polar bears hunt out on the ice during summer months and are forced to retreat back to land when the ice is too thin.
Saunders said the weather had been poor for much of the trip with much more cloud cover and fog than he had expected. The fresh snow he encountered was soft and bulky, unlike the typical hard, fine-grained snow found in the Arctic.
While I don't buy into the human-induced global warming theory at all, its hard to deny that global temperatures have increased.
What I find most significant about the idea of the melting of Arctic ice is that we may have a third coast to give military consideration.
Okay. A couple years ago this came up on FR and we did the experiment. An amusing evening in the FR science division.
How was the next morning?
drag his sled across open patches of water nine times during the 71 days he spent alone.
Well, long range forecasts are only about averages, not details. I predict that in 2024, New York City will generally be cooler from January through March than from June through August.
I personally doubt the cause is man but it definately warmer today in NE in the winter than it was in the 50's. I don't need temperature records for that.
Perhaps you shouldn't sit on it tp...
Or Gin and Tonic, but I have to keep repeating it, because as the ice melts the level of liquid keeps going down...
Sit on what? -- The picture of your foot in mouth?
Thirsty fish.
BTW, this guy isn't an explorer. He's a tourist.
Lighten up just a bit, MBO.
Sitting on your bs meter of course...it's not the proper way to treat an instrument. You know, kind of like the way you have abused your brain.
And the good news is, the NorthWest passage should be available year round!
I find both extremes of the global warming arguement hard to imagine. First, it's obvious that the Earth has climate changes, and that temperatures will change, regardless of what humans are doing. Second, it's difficult to imagine that 4.5 billion of us, many of us generating pollution, don't have some effect on our surroundings.
And to think he could have been a polar bear snack.
He also stated that this is not brought up because if this became widely known, the studiers of global warming wouldn't get any money from Congress.
Actually, a floating object displaces its mass in water. /nitpick
The snow and ice on land would need to melt and run off into the ocean to cause any rise in sea levels. I would imagine that the ice packs on the water would melt before that happened.
I seem to recall the "shocking news" of clear water at the North pole last year. It was trumpeted as (all together now) more proof of Global Warming. Then a few weeks later some scientists debunked the alarm by noting that the North Pole has been documented as frequently ice-free during summer months. This was not a new development, and had no bearing on Global Warming one way or the other.
Does anyone else remember that story?
Gee, when ice cubes in your drink melt does your glass overflow?
No it doesn't. Water actually expands as it freezes (that's why ice floats). When it melts it does not add to volume of water; it was already displacing and equal amount of water.
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