The Worrying Arctic Ice Situation - Now You See It, Now You Don't...

The Arctic sea ice level is rapidly shrinking and heading toward a new record, as at this point it reached its second-lowest level ever. Over the next few weeks, scientists fear that 2007’s record low will be reached and significantly surpassed.

The prognosis has been released by the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado, in charge of monitoring these changes and at this point there is not much that can be done.

"No matter where we stand at the end of the melt season it's just reinforcing this notion that Arctic ice is in its death spiral," said Mark Serreze, a scientist at the center. He added that there is a strong possibility that by 2030, the Arctic might be free of summer ice. The two most affected places by the melting process are the Chukchi Sea off the Alaskan coast and the East Siberian Seas off the coast of eastern Russia.

"We could very well be in that quick slide downward in terms of passing a tipping point," explained scientist Mark Serreze. "It's tipping now. We're seeing it happen now." What he is trying to do, is make it clear that this is a fact, it is a phenomenon that is taking place right now, not something that is expected to happen over the next couple of years. Even though scientists have been addressing the issue of global warming for many years, very few people believed that the issue demands attention, probably expecting nature to balance out the dangerous factors.

One of the important problems linked to disappearance of ice in the Chukchi Sea is the fact that it hosts the world’s largest polar bear population, which at this point could be referred to as endangered and in need of a new home. In the past few years there have been several reports on drowned polar bears. "Unfortunately it's what we might expect to see if bears are forced to swim longer distances," said Margaret Williams of the fund's Alaska office. "The Arctic is gigantic. When you have nine bears sighted in one transect (route) ... one can assume that there are likely a lot more bears swimming in open water." Even though they are excellent swimmers, there is a limit of their capacities, and after about 100 miles they need to rest and eat. Their main preys are fish and seals but if relegated to land, their options will be limited and that could lead to the endangerment of the people in the area. Also, the rescuing procedure is problematic, as by tranquilizing a bear, it is very likely to drown.

Last week, the Arctic sea ice measured 2.03 million square miles and to put things in perspective just think that in 2005 the sea ice measured 2.05 and 2007’s record was of 1.59 square miles.

Bob Corell, who headed a multinational scientific assessment of Arctic conditions a few years ago, managed to describe the situation in just one sentence: "We're moving beyond a point of no return."