Modern Arctic explorers

The Star's science reporter, Peter Calamai, joins the Coast Guard icebreaker Amundsen (picutred below) in the Western Arctic Ocean to chronicle the adventures of Canadian scientists who are probing causes for the rapid disappearance of the polar ice cover. He follows the experts as they investigate huge gashes in the sea ice and also explains experiments carried out in the ship's specialized laboratories.

PETER CALAMAI PHOTO

The bow of the Amundsen, a Coast Guard icebreaker that houses Canadian scientists, is seen in the Beaufort Sea in 2004.

Comments

[Al Macdonald]

Thanks for the ongoing view from the Arctic.

I have a question about the amount of Arctic Sea ice that has re-formed over this past winter. According to the daily sea ice maps website http://igloo.atmos.uiuc.edu/cgi-bin/test/print.sh, which you are no doubt familiar with, the sea ice has made a substantial recovery. Is this the case, or is the newly formed ice just thin and unsubstantial? Has the ice recovered most of the losses of the last years (except in the Kamchatcka area) or are we still facing a huge deterioration. Thanks, AL

[Hashim Javed]

The sea ice which you speak of that deteriorated happened during the summer months. In the winter the Arctic ocean freezes up and the majority of the ice is usually maintained through out the year. However, in June of 2007 a chunk of ice mass equivalent to Ontario had melted throwing of any model ever predicted. It is likely that more and more ice will begin to melt in the coming summers, and eventually less ice will freeze in the coming winter. Therefore just to answer your question, it is new ice that has been formed, and will probably melt in the summer and form once again next winter.