What If The Arctic Ocean Melts?

We can know, because it already has many times in the past.

by Matt Ridley
September 21, 2016

The sea ice in the Arctic Ocean is approaching its annual nadir. By early September each year about two thirds of the ice cap has melted, then the sea begins to freeze again.

This year looks unlikely to set a record for melting, with more than four million square kilometers of ice remaining, less than the average in the 1980s and 1990s, but more than in the record low years of 2007 and 2012. (The amount of sea ice around Antarctica has been increasing in recent years, contrary to predictions.)

This will disappoint some.

A British expedition led by David Hempleman-Adams to circumnavigate the North Pole through the Northeast and Northwest passages, intending to demonstrate “that the Arctic sea ice coverage shrinks back so far now in the summer months that sea that was permanently locked up now can allow passage through,” was recently held up for weeks north of Siberia by, um, ice. They have only just now (8/31) reached halfway.

Meanwhile, the habit of some sc…