Explorers will measure Arctic ice thickness to determine when it will disappear

(Photo of expedition at North Pole from Flickr and photographer kanati/Adam Grimes)

News Update: A team of 3 British explorers will take a 4-month trip to the North Pole on foot, skis and even swimming, in an effort to determine when Arctic summer ice will disappear. The UN-backed group expects to take 10 million readings to gauge ice thickness, something satellites have been unable to determine. Estimates for summer ice to disappear now range from 5-100 years, so a little more specificity is in order. Summer ice in the Arctic has been receding at a rate of 116,000 square miles per decade (about the size of the British Isles), but no one knows how much it has thinned. The 3 expect to work 12 hours/day in temperatures as low at 58 degrees (F) below zero. Leading the group is British explorer Pen Hadow, who made a pioneering solo walk from Canada to the North Pole in 2003. (Source: PlanetArk)

Ice chunk the size of Texas melts in Arctic's Northwest Passage; heat floods Canadian park

(Photo of hikers in Auyuittuq National Park from Flickr and photographer Peter Morgan

News Update 1: Strong southerly winds have melted a piece of Arctic ice in the Beaufort Sea the size of Texas, making it likely the Northwest Passage will be navigable for the second summer in a row. While end-of-summer ice melt is not expected to surpass last year’s record, it is likely to be a close second and Beaufort is open further north than ever before, one-third of the way from Alaska to the North Pole. The melting of the large chunk of ice is a sure sign of global warming, said Mark Serreze, of the National Snow and Ice Data Center. Elsewhere in the Arctic, record high temperatures forced closure of most of Auyuittuq National Park on Canada's Baffin Island. Melting permafrost, erosion and flooding led to evacuation by helicopter of 21 park visitors. Temperatures reached into the 80s for two weeks. The July average is usually 57. (Sources: Greenwire, Anchorage Daily News,PlanetArk )