Keep An Eye On The Polar Ice

It seems that a group of scientists think the polar ice could all melt off this year. The media picked it up as a major story earlier in the week and treated this speculation as fact. Whether you agree with this or not, the tone of the article points out a hidden agenda as well. Here is an interesting quote:

“From the viewpoint of science, the North Pole is just another point on the globe, but symbolically it is hugely important. There is supposed to be ice at the North Pole, not open water,” said Mark Serreze of the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Colorado.

If it happens, it raises the prospect of the Arctic nations being able to exploit the valuable oil and mineral deposits below these a bed which have until now been impossible to extract because of the thick sea ice above.

My first point is to question why there is “supposed to be ice at the North Pole.” It is a fact that in the 4 billion or so years of there Earth’s history there were many times when there was no ice at the North Pole, and for long periods of time. Secondly there appears to be a decidedly anti business tone to the next paragraph. Heaven help us all if we can now start fishing and drilling in areas of the world that were previously closed off to us.

Here is a link to a site that you can use to monitor the polar ice and even compare it to previous years.