Polar ice could
disappear in five years
COPENHAGEN.—Recent computer models suggest that
the Arctic Ocean could be left virtually without ice
in summertime as soon as 2014, affirmed former vice
president Al Gore, addressing the UN Climate Change
Conference.
The
icecap of the northern polar sea has reduced
alarmingly. New projections suggest an almost
nonexistent cap far sooner than a U.S. government
agency forecast just eight months ago.
"It is hard to describe the shock that ice
scientific experts felt when they saw that," Gore
told journalists and participants at a conference of
Scandinavian scientists and officials, according to
the AP agency.
One of the reports presented was issued by the
Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program, run by a
group of government experts from Arctic territories,
and including the United States. The other report,
on the status of melting ice throughout the world,
commissioned by Gore and the government of Norway,
was compiled by the Norwegian Polar Institute.
"With global warming, we have awoken giants,"
stated Danish scientist Dorthe Dahl Jensen,
referring to increased sea levels as a consequence
of ice thawing.
