Nobel Prize winning Internet inventor Al Gore says that the Arctic will be ice free next summer, and it is too late to “do anything about it.”
Arctic Ocean ice could melt by 2013
AM – Thursday, 13 December , 2007 08:08:00
TONY EASTLEY: A year ago US scientists caused alarm when they predicted the Arctic Ocean could be free of summer ice by 2030, but now researchers say those estimates were far too conservative.
A US-based team has told a conference in California that the northern polar waters could be ice-free in summer by 2013.
WIESLAW MASLOWSKI: We’re just moving this date closer and closer to us simply because I believe what is happening, the system in the Arctic Ocean is very complex and from a mathematical point of view, it’s non linear.
AL GORE: Last September 21, as the northern hemisphere tilted away from the sun, scientists reported with unprecedented alarm that the north polar ice cap is in their words, falling off a cliff.
One study estimated that it could be completely gone during summer in less than 22 years. Another new study to be presented by US Navy researchers later this week warns it could happen in as little as seven years. Seven years from now.
BARBARA MILLER: As the world meets in Bali, Al Gore went on to repeat his calls for tough action on climate change.
The trouble is, it looks increasingly like it may already be too late.
But it is worse than it seems. In 1960, scientists knew that the Arctic would be ice-free year round by the year 2000.











