North Pole Now a Lake

[NickB79]

http://www.livescience.com/38347-north-pole-ice-melt-lake.html

Instead of snow and ice whirling on the wind, a foot-deep aquamarine lake now sloshes around a webcam stationed at the North Pole. The meltwater lake started forming July 13, following two weeks of warm weather in the high Arctic. In early July, temperatures were 2 to 5 degrees Fahrenheit (1 to 3 degrees Celsius) higher than average over much of the Arctic Ocean, according to the National Snow & Ice Data Center.

Meltwater ponds sprout more easily on young, thin ice, which now accounts for more than half of the Arctic's sea ice. The ponds link up across the smooth surface of the ice, creating a network that traps heat from the sun. Thick and wrinkly multi-year ice, which has survived more than one freeze-thaw season, is less likely sport a polka-dot network of ponds because of its rough, uneven surface.

July is the melting month in the Arctic, when sea ice shrinks fastest. An Arctic cyclone, which can rival a hurricane in strength, is forecast for this week, which will further fracture the ice and churn up warm ocean water, hastening the summer melt. 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.

Uh oh.......

[phantom power]

1. interesting, so even area with ice cover can behave as if it isn't

reduced albedo and dumping moisture into the atmosphere.

[Politicalboi]

2. And we keep finding ways to

Continue to pollute and destroy. AKA Fracking. When those things leak, we won't see black tar all over the place. We won't see anything, and we're at the mercy of the fracking companies to tell us the truth. No clean water to drink, and more harmful gases in the air. Why don't we just build a huge magnifying glass and get it over with already.

[starroute]

3. So Mary Shelley was right -- sort of

Nobody remembers it, but the original novel version of Frankenstein is told in the form of a series of letters by a would-be polar explorer who encounters Victor Frankenstein in the icy wastes and transcribes his story. The novel begins:

St. Petersburgh, Dec. 11th, 17—

TO Mrs. Saville, England

You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings. I arrived here yesterday, and my first task is to assure my dear sister of my welfare and increasing confidence in the success of my undertaking.

I am already far north of London, and as I walk in the streets of Petersburgh, I feel a cold northern breeze play upon my cheeks, which braces my nerves and fills me with delight. Do you understand this feeling? This breeze, which has travelled from the regions towards which I am advancing, gives me a foretaste of those icy climes. Inspirited by this wind of promise, my daydreams become more fervent and vivid. I try in vain to be persuaded that the pole is the seat of frost and desolation; it ever presents itself to my imagination as the region of beauty and delight. There, Margaret, the sun is forever visible, its broad disk just skirting the horizon and diffusing a perpetual splendour. There—for with your leave, my sister, I will put some trust in preceding navigators—there snow and frost are banished; and, sailing over a calm sea, we may be wafted to a land surpassing in wonders and in beauty every region hitherto discovered on the habitable globe. Its productions and features may be without example, as the phenomena of the heavenly bodies undoubtedly are in those undiscovered solitudes. What may not be expected in a country of eternal light? I may there discover the wondrous power which attracts the needle and may regulate a thousand celestial observations that require only this voyage to render their seeming eccentricities consistent forever. I shall satiate my ardent curiosity with the sight of a part of the world never before visited, and may tread a land never before imprinted by the foot of man. These are my enticements, and they are sufficient to conquer all fear of danger or death and to induce me to commence this laborious voyage with the joy a child feels when he embarks in a little boat, with his holiday mates, on an expedition of discovery up his native river. But supposing all these conjectures to be false, you cannot contest the inestimable benefit which I shall confer on all mankind, to the last generation, by discovering a passage near the pole to those countries, to reach which at present so many months are requisite; or by ascertaining the secret of the magnet, which, if at all possible, can only be effected by an undertaking such as mine.

[limpyhobbler]

4. .

[hatrack]

5. Oops.

And still early - two months to go before seasonal low.

[OnlinePoker]

6. Not quite the pole, but close enough

The cameras have drifted to just around 84.5 degrees north. If you look at the second buoy data in this link, you will see the atmospheric record and the camera archives in the upper left and right corners. It's interesting that the cameras are in the same place with one pointing one way and one the other, but one shows no water and the other looks like it's in the middle of a melt lake.

http://psc.apl.washington.edu/northpole/index.html

Temperatures have been above 0 Celsius for a bit lately, but according to this site from Denmark, it's normal above 80 degrees north for this time of the year (we've actually been below average above 80 for the summer so far).

http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php