No more Arctic ice within ten years

[Paddy]

Preliminary results from a European Space Agency satellite measuring the thickness of Arctic ice suggests it is melting faster than previously thought.

Seymour Laxon of the Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling said the thickness of the ice could now be measured to an accuracy of 10cm (3.5in).

He said there has been a "very strong decline" in the thickness of the ice, and if the current trend continues, the Arctic could be ice-free on a summer's day by the end of the decade.

BBC News - Today - Arctic ice: Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling

[BlasterBates]

ah I see that they've extended the deadline

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Arctic summers ice-free 'by 2013'

"Our projection of 2013 for the removal of ice in summer is not accounting for the last two minima, in 2005 and 2007," the researcher from the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California, explained to the BBC.
"So given that fact, you can argue that may be our projection of 2013 is already too conservative."

[Doggy Styles]

BBC News - Today - Arctic ice: Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling

The Arctic Ice is not permanent. It comes and goes. I'm amazed they are still peddling these daft stories.

North Pole, 1958



North Pole, 1962



North Pole, 1986

[BolshieBastard]

The Arctic Ice is not permanent. It comes and goes. I'm amazed they are still peddling these daft stories.

North Pole, 1958



North Pole, 1962



North Pole, 1986

Now I would be worried if those pictures had been taken at the South Pole

[Spacecadet]

Arctic ICE PANIC sparked by half-baked sat data ? The Register

[Scoobos]

The Arctic Ice is not permanent. It comes and goes. I'm amazed they are still peddling these daft stories.

I hope you are right, I think though that the worry is that it will be permanent, permanently gone.

[Doggy Styles]

I hope you are right, I think though that the worry is that it will be permanent, permanently gone.

True that would be a concern. But according to another post above they seem to be extrapolating from only two years' data.

So if ice this year is 10% down on last year, they seem to be predicting the same reduction in ice mass every year, and so in 10 years it will be gone. And then they are assuming it will never come back.

I'm not sure how scientific that is, but, on the face of it, it doesn't sound very logical.

[escapeUK]

I hope you are right, I think though that the worry is that it will be permanent, permanently gone.

Why would that be a worry? The area is inhospitable to life do to being too icey, so it becoming less icey has to be great news.

[BlasterBates]

When they say it will disappear, which I think is hghly unlikely ( remember they told us the global temps were going to accelerate upwards and they haven't moved for 15 years), they mean it will disppear for a short period in Summer and then come back and fill the whole Arctic basin in the Winter. This prediction is in any case complete fantasy. Nothing will occur in the forseeable future we haven't seen in the past.

[d000hg]

I hope you are right, I think though that the worry is that it will be permanent, permanently gone.

I haven't heard that concern.