Country Life In The City

A recent survey of the Artic ice cap by Pen Hadow, Martin Hartley and Ann Daniels to assess the thickness of the ice has predicted that summer ice in the region will have completely melted within 20 -30 years and largely ice free within a decade.

They found evidence that multi-year ice is shrinking rapidly, whilst first year ice was comprising most of the ice flow, making it more vulnerable in the summer. They are putting the findings down to global warming in action.

Across their 450-kilometre (290 mile) route, the average thickness of the ice floes was 1.8m, while it was 4.8m when incorporating the compressed ridges of ice.

“An average thickness of 1.8 metres is typical of first year ice, which is more vulnerable in the summer. And the multi-year ice is shrinking back more rapidly,” said Professor Peter Wadhams, head of the polar ocean physics group at Cambridge University.

Doctor Martin Sommerkorn, senior climate change adviser for the World Wide Fund for Nature’s international Arctic programme, said the survey painted a sombre picture of the ice meltdown, which was happening “faster than we thought”.

“Remove the Arctic ice cap and we are left with a very different and much warmer world,” he said.

Loss of sea ice cover will “set in motion powerful climate feedbacks which will have an impact far beyond the Arctic itself,” he added.

One alternative to cut CO2 emissions would be to switch from coal to natural gas or nuclear energy for power. Natural gas produces half the CO2 emissions of coal and we have enough for hundreds of years. Cars and lorries can burn natural gas instead of petrol. Natural gas produces a third less carbon dioxide than gasoline. Nuclear energy produces no carbon dioxide but mega amounts of electricity with a very small carbon footprint. The electricity from nuclear plants could also be use to produce hydrogen which could power internal combustions engines with zero exhaust emissions.