“Catastrophic Shifts in Climate Feared if Change Occurs
Col. Bernt Balchen, polar explorer and flier, is circulating a paper among polar specialists proposing that the Arctic pack ice is thinning and that the ocean at the North Pole may become an open sea within a decade or two.
Although he bases his thesis on predictions in recent years by several experts in_ polar weather and_ ice behavior, interviews with a number of other specialists have shown a widespread belief that the Progressive shrinkage of the Arctic pack ice over the last century has reversed itself, at least temporarily.
Disappearance of the Arctic pack would enable the largest tankers to reach the newly discovered oil fields of northern Alaska. However, of major concern is the possibility of catastrophic climate changes.
A number of specialists believe that an ice-free Arctic Ocean would not freeze again. If so, it has been predicted that storm paths would change ‘and the food-producing areas of the Central United States and Eurasia might become deserts. Likewise, it is thought that great ice sheets would form farther north.”
