Klimaatgekte: Independent *loog* over ijsvrije Poolroute (2)

[Dr. Marc-Alexander Fluks]

REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl

[The Indendent is weer online...]

Bron:   The Independent
Datum:  31 augustus 2008
Auteur: Geoffrey Lean
URL:    http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/for-the-first-time-in-human-history-the-north-pole-can-be-circumnavigated-913924.html
Opm:    Dit lijkt een geupdate versie (er staat 'last night' maar het artikel
        verscheen eerder dan vandaag). Inderdaad is het een uithaal naar de
        kandidatuur van Sarag Palin (want die was in dit stuk natuurlijk
        nooit voorgekomen als het wel ergens over ging).
        Mijn uitleg: dat down-gaan van de Independent-site betrof geen toeval
        - men moest een leugen bijstellen. Inmiddels komen 'de beelden' uit
        Bremen en niet uit de VS - maar de Universiteit van Bremen,
           http://www.uni-bremen.de
           http://presse.uni-bremen.de/sixcms/detail.php?template=uni_old_page_allnewslist
        heeft *niets hierover* om z'n 'obscure' website...
        Verder staat hieronder een voorspelling die in tegenspraak is met het
        Reuters persbericht waarop het overduidelijk gebaseerd is.
        Een aantal fantasten lijkt momenteel in paniek en liegt er in het wilde
        weg op los...


For the first time in human history, the North Pole can be circumnavigated
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Melting ice opens up North-west and North-east passages simultaneously.
Scientists warn Arctic icecap is entering a 'death spiral'

Open water now stretches all the way round the Arctic, making it possible
for the first time in human history to circumnavigate the North Pole, The
Independent on Sunday can reveal. New satellite images, taken only two days
ago, show that melting ice last week opened up both the fabled North-west
and North-east passages, in the most important geographical landmark to date
to signal the unexpectedly rapid progress of global warming.

Last night Professor Mark Serreze, a sea ice specialist at the official US
National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), hailed the publication of the
images - on an obscure website by scientists at the University of Bremen,
Germany - as "a historic event", and said that it provided further evidence
that the Arctic icecap may now have entered a "death spiral". Some
scientists predict that it could vanish altogether in summer within five
years, a process that would, in itself, greatly accelerate.

But Sarah Palin, John McCain's new running mate, holds that the scientific
consensus that global warming is melting Arctic ice is unreliable.

The opening of the passages - eagerly awaited by shipping companies who hope
to cut thousands of miles off their routes by sailing round the north of
Canada and Russia - is only the greatest of a host of ominous signs this
month of a gathering crisis in the Arctic. Early last week the NSDIC warned
that, over the next few weeks, the total extent of sea ice in the Arctic may
shrink to below the record low reached last year - itself a massive 200,000
square miles less than the previous worst year, 2005.

Four weeks ago, tourists had to be evacuated from Baffin Island's Auyuittuq
National Park because of flooding from thawing glaciers. Auyuittuq means
"land that never melts".

Two weeks later, in an unprecedented sighting, nine stranded polar bears
were seen off Alaska trying to swim 400 miles north to the retreating icecap
edge. Ten days ago massive cracking was reported in the Petermann glacier in
the far north of Greenland, an area apparently previously unaffected by
global warming.

But it is the simultaneous opening - for the first time in at least 125,000
years - of the North-west passage around Canada and the North-east passage
around Russia that promises to deliver much the greatest shock. Until
recently both had been blocked by ice since the beginning of the last Ice
Age.

In 2005, the North-east passage opened, while the western one remained
closed, and last year their positions were reversed. But the images,
gathered by Nasa using microwave sensors that penetrate clouds, show that
the North-west passage opened last weekend and that the last blockage on the
north- eastern one - a tongue of ice stretching down to Russia across
Siberia's Laptev Sea - dissolved a few days later.

"The passages are open," said Professor Serreze, though he cautioned that
official bodies would be reluctant to confirm this for fear of lawsuits if
ships encountered ice after being encouraged to enter them. "It's a historic
event. We are going to see this more and more as the years go by."

Shipping companies are already getting ready to exploit the new routes. The
Bremen-based Beluga Group says it will send the first ship through the
North-east passage - cutting 4,000 nautical miles off the voyage from
Germany to Japan - next year. And Canada's Prime Minister, Stephen Harper,
last week announced that all foreign ships entering the North-west passage
should report to his government - a move bound to be resisted by the US,
which regards it as an international waterway.

But scientists say that such disputes will soon become irrelevant if the ice
continues to melt at present rates, making it possible to sail right across
the North Pole. They have long regarded the disappearance of the icecap as
inevitable as global warming takes hold, though until recently it was not
expected until around 2070.

Many scientists now predict that the Arctic ocean will be ice-free in summer
by 2030 - and a landmark study this year by Professor Wieslaw Maslowski at
the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, concluded that there
will be no ice between mid-July and mid-September as early as 2013.

The tipping point, experts believe, was the record loss of ice last year,
reaching a level not expected to occur until 2050. Sceptics then dismissed
the unprecedented melting as a freak event, and it was indeed made worse by
wind currents and other natural weather patterns.

Conditions were better this year - it has been cooler, particularly last
winter - and for a while it looked as if the ice loss would not be so bad.
But this month the melting accelerated. Last week it shrank to below the
2005 level and the European Space Agency said: "A new record low could be
reached in a matter of weeks."

Four weeks ago, a seven-year study at the University of Alberta reported
that - besides shrinking in area - the thickness of the ice had dropped by
half in just six years. It suggested that the region had "transitioned into
a different climatic state where completely ice-free summers would soon
become normal".

The process feeds on itself. As white ice is replaced by sea, the dark
surface absorbs more heat, warming the ocean and melting more ice.

--------
(c) 2008 The Independent

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