Explorers: North Pole Summers Ice Free in 10 Years

Chelsea Jobe
10-25-09
4:18 pm

A team of explorers called the Catlin Arctic Survey team, led by explorer Pen Hadow, recently trekked through the arctic for a period of three months and gathered data about the North Pole while on the journey for the research project. They measured the thickness of the ice. They recently found out on Wednesday that they think North Pole will be nothing but open ocean within the span of ten years. The results of the research is that most of the ice in the area is only first-year ice that's only around six feet deep and will melt, most likely, next summer. Previously that region of ice had been much thicker, multilayer ice that doesn't melt nearly as quickly. This information supports in a new consensus that the arctic will be completely free from ice during the summer within the next 20 years. Most of the melting will happen in the next ten.
This is very important information that I'm glad we gathered before it was too late. It seems as though the ice is melting even faster than most scientists have anticipated. The fact that in the future my kids could only be used to an arctic where there is ice in the summer only. That just freaks me out. I hope we can start putting a lid on global warming before we lose all this precious ice that's going to mess up the fresh water flow and saltwater flow around the world.

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/JustOneThing/wireStory?id=8831446