An Ice-Free North Pole

The Arctic is treading on thin ice.

So concludes an analysis done by Cambridge University, which says the Arctic-will be ice-free in the summer within 10 years. The results were based on more than 1,500 measurements of sea ice taken by British explorer Pen Hadow this winter.

With a pair of shredded black lacy underwear as his secret navigational weapon (it’s too cold for GPS and he was too close to magnetic north, so it was panties to the wind), Hadow trekked more than 269 miles toward the North Pole. The explorer – the first to trek solo to the North Pole – was the leader of the Catlin Arctic Survey, a project supported by the World Wildlife Federation and the UK’s Prince Charles.

The conclusions from the expedition's work will be presented at the UN's Copenhagen climate change meetings in December as yet more proof that the world must reduce carbon emissions to slow down the melting process.

The good news in this, if there is any, is that ships will be able to travel through the Artic Ocean in the summer. Otherwise, the outlook is grim: The WWF’s analysis of Hadow’s measurements is that the melting is an irreversible trend that could trigger life-threatening weather patterns as the ocean currents change and release even more greenhouse gases stored under the ice.

Professor Peter Wadhams, of Cambridge University’s Polar Ocean Physics Group, told the UK’s The Telegraph: "It will not be very long before we start to think of the Arctic as an open sea. We have taken the lid off the northern part of the planet and we cannot put it back on again."

Photo courtesy ouec via Flickr.