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By 2040: an Arctic with no ice?
Times Online Link
Times Online Link
Ice is melting so fast in the Arctic that the North Pole will be in the open sea in 30 years, according to leading climatologists.
Ships will be able to sail over the top of the world and tourists will be able visit what was, until climate change, one of planetâs most inaccessible landscapes.
American researchers, assessing the impact of carbon emissions on world climate have calculated that late summer in the Arctic will be ice-free by 2040 or earlier, well within a lifetime.
Some ice would still be found on coastlines, notably Greenland and Ellesmere Island, but the rest of the Arctic Ocean, including the pole, would be open water.
The researchers, who were funded by Nasa, said that the ice retreat is likely to remain fairly constant until 2024 when there will be a sudden speeding up of the process.