Arctic Ice - Far too valuable to lose, especially in next 10-20 years

New reports have revealed that the Arctic Ice cap will completely disappear in the next few decades, contradicting earlier reports and studies that perhaps we were going to be lucky enough to have a Northern Ice shelf for another century or two.


As with all studies, it will come with its share of critics, as there are with the entire concept of global warming. The essence in all these studies for mine is the fact that they do actually come with supporting arguments.

As the toll is still to be genuinely felt around the world in regards to global warming or climate change, it is with some trepidation that we may have to wait for a major event to convince the policy makers of the need for serious, immediate and drastic change.

With just two months until arguably the most important summit the world has ever seen regarding this, one wonders whether these latest alarm bells will galvanise people into real action, or just promote more political posturing.

The melting of this key planetary balancing system, a major environmental control factor for planet earth, could be this occurrence.

British polar adventurer Pen Hadow and two others spent over two months at the Arctic ice cap over the northern spring (march to may), taking thousands of measurements and observations of the polar shelf, which have in turn been studied by numerous experts.

One such man, Cambridge University’s Professor Peter Wadhams, an expert on the Arctic ice and head of polar ocean physics group at Britain’s Cambridge University, believes that the area will be ice free during summer months in perhaps 20 years.

"The summer ice cover will completely vanish in 20 to 30 years but in less than that it will have considerably retreated," said Wadhams.

"In about 10 years, the Arctic ice will be considered as open sea."

"An average thickness of 1.8 metres is typical of first year ice, which is more vulnerable in the summer. And the multi-year ice is shrinking back more rapidly."
"It's a concrete example of global change in action."

"With a larger part of the region now in first year ice, it is clearly more vulnerable. The area is now more likely to become open water each summer, bringing forward the potential date when the summer sea ice will be completely gone."

This, as mentioned above, is a massive advance on earlier predictions. Most forecasts said that this event would not occur until around 2100-2200. With grim irony, the statement “out of sight out of mind” seems to mould to “out of lifespan, out of care” when it comes to the potentially cataclysmic events that could occur with such global shifts.

Why worry about it when it will not affect a single current living human?

Many believe that the melting of the polar icecaps most severe follow through would be the rising of the world’s sea levels, but the lack of ice cover sets in play far more powerful modifications.

The flooding itself could affect approximately 1-2 billion people, which is roughly the number of people that live at sea level. Global weather patterns would obviously change, but increases in greenhouse gas emission would spike due to the little known fact that polar ice shelves act as massive super coolers for the earth’s atmosphere.

Some populations, such as the Maldives, the lowest country on the planet (average ground level of 1.5 metres, with its highest point being 2.3 metres) would cease to exist. 2009 estimates put the Maldivian population at over 300,000.

However the flooding would not come from the melted Arctic ice itself, but rather the ensuing increases in temperature that would then affect overall climate or land based ice.

The way that the energy and heat from the sun is absorbed will irrevocably adapt without an Arctic ice cap. Most notably the way it reflects or absorbs energy, or how temperature based ocean currents, including the all important Gulf Stream, affect global climate.

The Arctic is a brilliant natural reflector thanks to phenomena called the albedo.

Effectively it refers to the reflectivity of an object, similar to wearing a black T-shirt in the sun and getting hot, or wearing a white one and feeling cooler. It is measured from 0 to 1.

Ice is second only to snow for the amount of albedo (or rating), coming in at .5 to .7, and hence maintaining the mean temperature of the planet. Open water reflects barely .1, which means that the added heat absorbed into the Arctic Ocean will increase local and regional temperatures.

This increase could affect Greenland, and increase the mean temperatures of the permafrost areas of Canada and Russia. Not only could this in turn dump millions of tonnes of fresh water into the ocean, but release methane which in turn again, would increase temperatures.

That is the horror of such events, of major climate change incidents.

If one does indeed occur, it will start a chain reaction that we will be powerless to stop.

As well as humans, animals and local arctic species will suffer, if not become extinct.

But once the Ice has gone, there are estimated vast reserves of gas and oil underneath the Arctic. Who would it belong too? Would this then lead to a conflict over territory?

What of the new shipping lanes opened up by ice free Northern oceans?

These are all questions that would arguably be too difficult to answer, but at the moment the subject and information at hand is being largely avoided. There is far too much information at hand for this to be dismissed by sceptics, and accordingly we shall await Copenhagen with hushed breath.