So says Peter Wadhams, professor of ocean physics at Cambridge. Winter ice should be OK, though. The artistic implications are that the top of the Earth will be blue instead of white as seen from space, and ships will have a new route to sail through.
“The 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,” Wadhams said in a statement. “Much of the decrease will be happening within 10 years.”
Much of the evidence for this was gathered earlier by British explorer Pen Hadow, who explored the area by submarine. His team drilled 1,500 holes to find the average thickness of the ice, and found it to be 1.8 meters, which is too thin to survive the melting of the ice in the summer.
If that happens, the water in the arctic will dramatically heat the earth even faster, as water absorbs heat while ice reflects it. I don’t want to think about the consequences of a dramatically warmer world, as we already live in a dramatically warmer world as it is.
I’m almost hoping that the added fresh water in the oceans will shut down the North Atlantic current, which in turn will cool the planet once more as warm water stops being transported from the equator to the polls. That’s what that movie, The Day After Tomorrow, depicted. It might just be the Earth’s tipping point and cooling mechanism once this sort of thing happens.
I just hope, along with others, that we all survive the ride.
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