

North Pole Now a Lake - ojbyrne
http://www.livescience.com/38347-north-pole-ice-melt-lake.html

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jb-
[http://www.john-daly.com/NP1987.jpg](http://www.john-daly.com/NP1987.jpg)

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phaemon
Do you have a source for that photo? I can't seem to find the original.

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michaelwww
This photo is used a lot to deny climate change. I found it here at this
denial blog. But a careful reading will tell you they didn't surface at the
North Pole, but at the first open space in the ice nearest the North Pole.

[http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/04/26/ice-at-the-north-
pole-...](http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/04/26/ice-at-the-north-pole-
in-1958-not-so-thick/)

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joshuahedlund
The melting of the arctic sea ice is one of the strongest evidences for global
warming / climate change, especially considering last year's dramatic new
record low. However, if we're going to focus on the newsworthiness of this
particular bit of information, there's some other important context that is
often left out by those wishing to dramatize the northern melt as much as
possible.

1) The current northern ice levels, regardless of how big the lake is at the
North pole, are currently _better_ than the three lowest years on record,
though still historically low[1]. So you could be equally as truthful and
informative as this generally uninformative article, just with an opposite
spin, saying that the whole Arctic ocean's surface ice is at a three-year
high!

2) The Antarctic sea ice has been _above_ the historical average for over a
year.[2]

[1]
[http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm](http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm)
[2]
[http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.recent...](http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.recent.antarctic.png)

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bargl
Can anyone comment as to whether this is a normal phenomenon or not? I know
the temperature is warmer than normal, but the article doesn't discuss whether
melting on the surface of the ice is abnormal or not.

EDIT:

I did a quick look.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_the_Arctic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_the_Arctic)

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h1fra
Actually many studies proved that there is a natural long cycle in which artic
slowly melt and then refroze. It happend that we'r in this period.

So it's harder to determine how much the global warming impact the melting of
the pole, but we all know the answer.

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xutopia
I look at this picture and think to myself that we're in a pretty bad
situation here. White snow reflects heat back at a higher rate than water
does... I wonder what effect this will have.

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michaelwww
I saw this yesterday: Rapidly Melting Arctic Could Release A "Giant Pulse" Of
Methane

[http://bigthink.com/ideafeed/rapidly-melting-arctic-could-
re...](http://bigthink.com/ideafeed/rapidly-melting-arctic-could-release-a-
giant-pulse-of-methane)

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redblacktree
So what you're saying is that the Earth may fart soon?

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michaelwww
The top commenter on the article writes "What liberal hogwash." I have no idea
why a scientific matter has become part of political orthodoxy and debate.
People on the right would like to trivialize the matter like you do. Are you
all being paid directly by oil companies and if so, how can get some of that
action?

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redblacktree
Ha! No, I'm just someone who decided to make a flippant joke. If only my
internet slacking were paid...

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danso
This is some serious blogspam. There's not a single damn link to any actual
information (the links for "Data Center" and "network" go to computer-system
advertisements) and all other referential links go to livescience.com.

I'm not against aggregation or curation, but there is something especially
galling about a science blog that omits what _should_ be a common
characteristic in scientific literature: the linking back to original data and
sources.

The lack of this information makes this article pretty much useless. OK, so a
"meltwater lake" started forming in July 13...is that unusual? Is it unusually
early? Is it unusual in size? Who really knows, because as the OP says matter
of factly in the next graf:

> _July is the melting month in the Arctic, when sea ice shrinks fastest._

OK, so, is that an accepted fact of the seasonal cycle? Or is it unusual? Bad?
Good? Who knows? Guess we'll have to click on the "Arctic cyclone" link for
perhaps some more information, even though the forecast of such a cyclone
doesn't answer any of the original questions about context, because the
cyclone will purportedly make things worse than what they are now, but we just
don't know what "now" is. If only there was a link back to the original data
source.

And because of the Canon banner ad slapped over the lede image, I didn't
really look at the image because it looked like a nice Canon travel ad.

Also, what does this mean?

> The Arctic hit a record low summer ice melt last year on Sept. 16, 2012, the
> smallest recorded since satellites began tracking the Arctic ice in the
> 1970s.

Is a "record low summer ice melt" bad? Good? Does low melt mean that the
lowest amount of ice was melted? That seems good, right? Oh, if only there was
a table of numbers or something to clarify things.

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michaelwww
It looks like a mod fixed the link. LiveScience itself seems to be a pop
science site - nothing wrong with that - there are plenty of hard science
links to answer your questions.

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hga
Note that the jet stream is split this summer and that is causing a lot of
below the Arctic weirdness. Earlier I read this happens about once every 10
years and seldom in the summer.

Search on jet stream split, narrow to this year or the last few months.

