Two similar reports made their appearance this week regarding the end of the "melt season" for the Arctic region, and the dramatic drop off in the ice sheet. One report believes that evidence is pointing towards a total disappearance of the ice sheet by the summer of 2030, and the other report believes that a 40% drop off will occur by 2050.
The first report, released by the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC), represent the data at the end of the melt season, or summer. According to the report, released yearly at this time, the 2007 levels of ice in the Arctic Ocean are lower than ever before.
Dr Mark Serreze, an Arctic specialist at the Boulder University of Colorado National Snow and Ice Data Center, says that "It's amazing. It's simply fallen off a cliff and we’re still losing ice."
The report was blunt in its appraisal of the current conditions, stating that "As of today (September 3), ice extent in 2007 was 1 million square kilometers (386,000 square miles) less than the same day in 2005." Sea ice normally stops melting and begins its regrowth sometime in September, and according to reports, that is still a few weeks away. "The bottom line," the report states, is that "2007 has already unseated the 2005 record, but we don't yet know by how much."
It is as a result of these figures that the estimate has arisen that by 2030 there will be no more summer ice if the current rate of drop-off continues.
In fact, the drop off is so total that the Northwest Passage, the space that connects the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans together, is now almost completely open. It was only a hundred years ago that it would have taken over two years to find a safe passage through what was then thick and compact ice. Researchers also believe that the northeast passage (not yet capitalized due to its unpopularity apparently) could open later this year.
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