Cold Rush
Jul. 20, 2011: I am not perfect, and against my principles I today
tried to respond
to a skeptical blog comment on an article posted on the web issue of
danish newspaper "Information" reporting new data had revealed
further diminishing of the Arctic ice sheet in 2011 to the lowest on
(from satellite captured) record. The blog comment was followed by
a link to images of the Arctic ice sheet 2007 and 2011, and indeed it
was difficult to find any striking difference btw. the until then all
time low 2007 ice surface area and the surface area this year.
For some unknown reason I was not able to create an account / log in
to “Information”, and therefore not able to reply. And perhaps good for
that.
In 1986 I was part of a crew on a vessel sailing round Greenland, passing volcanic island "Jan Mayen" in the North Atlantic and down the East coat of Greenland through "Prins Christians Sund" and then North along the West Coast to US Thule Air Base and back. People often believe the ice sheet start abrupt, but the first many miles into the ice sheet often is a kind of "slush" ice before icebergs show. A funny story was when we visited Umanaq as then called, a small town located in the Disko Bay with a characteristic heart shaped mountain rising 1200 m. just behind the town. A couple of weeks before our visit an Italian team of mountain climbers had climbed the mountain and placed an Italian flag on the top, and when successful back at the base in Umanaq they next evening celebrated in the community centre. A young Greenlander must have felt offended and when the party was going on he in jogging shoes jumped up the mountain, picked the flag and before the celebration had ended in the night returned the flag to the Italians, to great joy for the locals.
But my reply should have been the image above depicting how Arctic ice have diminished since my time as sailor. I believe arctic melting usually continue until september. As a kind of underscore I have plotted projected mining, steel and aluminium plants planned by powerful companies who perhaps would benefit on open waters to new markets, and not being as skeptical to facts as the person I not was able to reply to. Credits to Cryosphere Today for images.