However, forecasts for the north polar cap are much more pessimistic. The square of pack ice decreases every year, and the situation with the ozone hole is much better in our hemisphere than above Antarctica. For example, last September the Envisat satellite took an image of another anti-record: due to the melting ice the first north-western passage opened for the first time from the Atlantic into the Pacific Ocean around North America. The total square of arctic ice amounted then to three million square kilometers.
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The situation is not better in seas that wash the north of Europe. This winter saw another record-small square of ice in the Baltic region. According to Sweden’s meteorological agency, about 49,000 square kilometers froze there during 2007-2008 (the norm is 180,000). The record glaciation was marked in the winter of 1986-1987 when ice covered 420,000 square kilometers. This year even the Gulf of Bothnia between Sweden and Finland did not practically freeze, only near the shores. To crown it all, the Baltic Sea unfroze completely two weeks earlier than usual.
Experts feel pessimistic about the forthcoming winter as well. According to James Overland, the Arctic will repeat last year’s record. Now the square of frozen seas in the Northern Hemisphere is 40 percent lower than it was two decades ago. “Last autumn, winter and up till now the concentration of ice in the Arctic is below norm,” the Associated Press quoted Jennifer Francis from the University of Rutgers as saying.
Translated by Julia Bulygina
Pravda.ru
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