http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20030813/sc_afp/arctic_environment_030813154038
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Arctic
ice cap will melt completely in 100 years
Wed Aug 13,11:40 AM ET
CAPTION:
"Satellite image of the North Pole. Scientists told AFP
that the Arctic ice cap will melt completely within the
next century if carbon dioxide emissions continue to heat
the Earth's atmosphere at current rates."
(AFP/Planetobserver/File)
OSLO (AFP) - The Arctic ice cap will melt completely within the
next century if carbon dioxide emissions continue to heat the
Earth's atmosphere at current rates, according to an international
study.
Since 1978, the ice
cap has shrunk by nearly three or four percent
per decade. At the turn of the century there will be no more ice
at the North Pole in summer," one of the study's authors,
Ola Johannessen, told AFP on Wednesday.
"If the CO2 emissions
continue to accelerate, that may occur
sooner, but if we cut them back the process will be slowed,"
said Johannessen, a professor at the Nansen research institute
in Bergen, Norway.
Observations of the
Arctic by satellite show that the polar
ice cap has shrunk by one million square kilometers (386,000
square miles) over the last 20 years and is only six million
square kilometers in the summer.
According to Johannessen,
the total melting of the ice cap
would set free a massive flow of cold water, which would
strongly reduce warm surface ocean currents such as the
Gulf Stream.
The Gulf Stream is
the reason behind Europe's temperate
climate and a reduction in its influence would have serious
consequences for climate and the ecosystem in the continent.
But Johannessen also
said that contrary to received wisdom
a melting of the ice cap would not entail a rise in the level
of the oceans.
"Because the ice
cap is already in the water when it is melting,
you are not adding any mass. Only precipitation, discharge from
rivers and the melting of glaciers can cause the water to rise,"
he said.
He added that the disappearance
of the Arctic ice cap would
benefit maritime transport as it would create a new northern
shipping route along Russia's northern coast that could save
some 10 days in journey time between Europe and Japan.
Ironically, the expanded
ocean would also help absorb the
carbon dioxide emissions that caused the ice cap to disappear
in the first place.
"The ocean will
play a major role in absorbing CO2.
Out of the seven gigatonnes of CO2 that we emit today,
the ocean is absorbing 2.5 tonnes just naturally.
The bigger the ocean is, the more CO2 it will be able
to absorb," Johannessen said.
