Researchers believe that the Northwest Passage will once again be free of any ice. This will be the second year that this has occurred and it worries scientists that the amount of ice in the Arctic has decreased dramatically in such a short time. Last September is when they first began to worry due to the fact that Arctic ice pack had been smaller then it has been in close to 30 years.
This year the ice has already claimed the title of second smallest ice pack with three weeks of its melting season left to go. Mark Serreze of the National Snow and Data Center in Boulder, Colorado stated that usually around this time is when the melting would start to slow down.
Researchers are trying to create new models to reflect how thin the ice has really become. Satellite measurements have been very useful for tracking data in the difficult-to-access polar region, especially since satellite radar can work through clouds and darkness - conditions frequently encountered in the Arctic.
ESA will expand its climate change monitoring capabilities with Cryosat-2 set to launch in 2009. The new satellite will be able to measure the rate at which both ice cover and ice thickness are diminishing.
During the UN climate meetings the Greenpeace Climate Policy Director - Bill Hare - stated that they have received “alarming” reports during the past few days of methane bursts located in the Arctic. These reports came from a Russian research ship in the Arctic sea and coincide with the dangers that the release of methane that is stored in the Arctic is having upon the environment. Methane is 23-25 times more potent a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide and is found in great abundance in frozen reserves in the Arctic.
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