Ice-Free North Pole in '08?

The chances are greater than 50% that there will be no ice at the North Pole this summer, according to this article in The Independent (see excerpt below):

Seasoned polar scientists believe the chances of a totally ice-free North Pole this summer are greater than 50:50 because the normally thick ice formed over many years at the Pole has been blown away and replaced by huge swathes of thinner ice formed over a single year.
This one-year ice is highly vulnerable to melting during the summer months and satellite data coming in over recent weeks shows that the rate of melting is faster than last year, when there was an all-time record loss of summer sea ice at the Arctic.
"The issue is that, for the first time that I am aware of, the North Pole is covered with extensive first-year ice – ice that formed last autumn and winter. I'd say it's even-odds whether the North Pole melts out," said Dr Serreze.
Each summer the sea ice melts before reforming again during the long Arctic winter but the loss of sea ice last year was so extensive that much of the Arctic Ocean became open water, with the water-ice boundary coming just 700 miles away from the North Pole.
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As North Pole Melts, Russia Claims Oil

According to an article in the (Canadian) National Post, Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay called Russia's rush to claim the ocean floor beneath the North Pole by planting a titanium-encased flag an empty gesture.

Two Russian submarines successfully plunged to the Arctic Ocean floor at the North Pole early Thursday, planting the nation's flag to mark the spot, and while expedition leaders hailed the exercise as a historic achievement, Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay dismissed it as "just a show" of Russian bravado.
In Charlottetown for the federal Conservative caucus meeting this week, Mr. MacKay said the diving expedition and flag-planting are "no threat to Canadian sovereignty."
Mr. MacKay, in a televised interview just hours after the Russian announcement, said: "This isn't the 15th century. You can't go around the world and just plant flags and say, We're claiming this territory.'
"There is no threat to Canadian sovereignty in the Arctic ... we're not at all concerned about this mission -- basically it's just a show by Russia," he told CTV.
A Russian NTV channel TV grab shows a front view of the Mir-1mini-submarine with Russian state flag prior to diving into the water of the Arctic Ocean, 02 August 2007. Members of Russia's parliament in a mini-submarine planted their country's flag four kilometres (2.5 miles) below the North Pole at the climax of a mission to back up Russian claims to the region's mineral riches.
But the dive is widely seen as a symbol of Russia's determination to claim ownership on an Ontario-sized swath of the Arctic Ocean sea floor -- and control potentially vast reserves of oil and gas on Canada's northern doorstep.
Expert observers in this country have said the relative ease with which the Russians can reach the North Pole and carry out such a descent is a clear indication of just how far behind Canada is in its capacity to assert its own claims in the Arctic Ocean.
Russia's flag-planting mission follows the claim made by a team of its scientists last month that the Lomonosov Ridge -- an underwater mountain chain that runs across the Arctic Ocean between Russia and Canada -- is geologically linked to Russia, giving it ownership of a vast, resource-rich area of the polar seafloor under a UN convention governing undersea territorial claims.
Though the Russian findings are far from proven, one expert, Mr. Michael Byers, Canada Research Chair in global politics and international law at the University of British Columbia, says Canada needs to identify possible underwater extensions to its own landmass before a 2013 deadline under the UN accord.
"Getting the work done on time will likely involve chartering a heavy icebreaker from Russia or Finland," Mr. Byers told CanWest News Service earlier this week. "So be it. The stakes involved more than justify the cost."
The Russian mini-submarines descended more than four kilometres underwater to reach the ocean floor and left behind a titanium capsule containing the Russian flag.

Interfaith Power and Light is a religious response to global warming with chapters in 22 states and Greater Washington, D.C. Find a link to your local chapter at http://www.theregenerationproject.org/State.htm

Clouds and Climate Change

"Scientists are peering into the clouds near the top of the world, trying to solve a mystery and learn something new about global warming. The mystery is the droplets of water in the cluds. With the North Pole just 685 miles away, they should be frozen, yet more of them are liquid than anyone expected. So the scientists working out of a converted blue cargo container are trying to determine whether the clouds are one of the causes — or effects — of Earth’s warming atmosphere. " Read the rest of this story here.