by Patricia Mayville-Cox
Sep 2nd 2008 @ 9:02AM
Filed under: Climate Change
The North Pole has become island for the first time in human history, and it is now possible to circumnavigate the Arctic ice cap. This was revealed by satellite images taken last week, showing that both the northwest and northeast passages are now open due to melting ice. These passages have not been open, simultaneously, since the beginning of the last Ice Age 125,000 years ago.
Mark Serreze, a specialist at the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center, said the images suggest that the Arctic might have entered a "death spiral" caused by climate change. Shipping companies are already planning to use the new routes.
In other Arctic ice news, according to the
Telegraph article, tourists had to be evacuated from a park on Baffin Island because of flooding caused by melting glaciers and polar bears have been spotted off Alaska trying to swim hundreds of miles to the retreating ice cap.
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