New Study Projects Ice-Free Arctic Ocean In Summer Before 2020

[hatrack]

Within 10 years, the Arctic Ocean may be ice-free all summer, according to an American researcher who says the ice is melting at a faster rate than all previous studies have estimated. “If it melts at the rate it has been over the past five to 10 years, it will take 10 years to melt it all,” researcher Wieslaw Maslowski said in a telephone interview from the Naval Postgraduate School in California.

Maslowski was hesitant to acknowledge this “pretty extreme news,” which surfaced unattributed in other media, because the complete results of his research have yet to be published. But Maslowski wants Arctic residents to understand that his 10-year timetable for an ice-free Northwest Passage in the summer is not a “prediction.” “This is an understanding based on new model simulations suggesting that Arctic ice might be melting much faster in the recent past than anyone has believed,” he said. “Most of the climate and ocean circulation models probably significantly underestimate how quickly the ice is melting in the Arctic.”

Maslowski’s models show the Northwest Passage could be ice-free in summer before 2020, due to warm water flowing from the Pacific and Atlantic oceans into the Arctic Ocean. This influx of “significantly warmer water” appears to be melting the ice from below and accelerating the melt from other sources.

“If you look at where ice is melting, these are the areas where either Atlantic or Pacific waters enters or recirculates in the sub-Arctic,” he said. Maslowski’s research on the “Causes of Changes in Arctic Sea Ice” was presented earlier this month at a seminar in Washington, D.C. His presentation said a summer ice-free Arctic Ocean will “impose new requirements on the U.S. Navy, the Department of Defense, and Homeland Security,” and cause dramatic changes in the Arctic eco-system, including the extinction of polar bears. “The above require understanding and prediction,” his presentation said.

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http://www.nunatsiaq.com/news/climate/60526_03.html

[teenagebambam]

1. God Bless Our President!

He's discovered the Northwest Passage!

[MsKandice01]

2. Fuck!!

That's the only response to this news I could come up with.

[Virginia Dare]

3. Ditto, that's about all I've got too....n/t