Dramatic discovery could be ammunition in fight against global warming
Mark MacKinnon
Ottawa -- For the first time in 55 million years, there's open water where the icecap should be at the North Pole.
The startling discovery gives ammunition to those who say Canada and other industrialized countries are moving too slowly to tackle global warming. Particularly since the new body of water -- some described it as a lake -- is in territory that Canada claims as its own.
A Russian icebreaker, the Yamal, made the discovery earlier this month when it suddenly encountered a 1.5-kilometre-wide swath of open water at the North Pole.
Oceanographer Dr. James McCarthy, director of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University, was aboard the tourist cruise as a lecturer. He called the discovery "totally unexpected." He said he'd made a similar journey to the North Pole six years earlier, and recalls the icebreaker plowing through two to three metres of ice.
Scientists have known for years that Arctic ice is rapidly thinning as the planet warms. One study found the ice was, on average, 40-per-cent thinner than 25 years ago.
A spokesman for the federal Department of Natural Resources said yesterday that the importance of the discovery has yet to be determined, as the ice in the Arctic Circle often breaks up during the summer. The Canadian Polar Commission said it had only recently heard about the discovery and was gathering information on it.
Dr. McCarthy said the ship's Russian captain had made the journey 10 times in recent years, and never before encountered open water at the North Pole.
Tourists on the boat, who had to be taken nearly 10 kilometres away to find ice thick enough to stand on, said they saw gulls -- never before reported in the region -- circling the body of water.
Even the environmentalists who had predicted climate change would have dire consequences for Canada's North were surprised to see such a dramatic development so soon.
"This is what scientists predicted we'd be seeing later on in the century," said David Hocking, a spokesman for the Vancouver-based David Suzuki Foundation. "It's a remarkable wake-up call."
He said he hopes the discovery will jump-start Canada's efforts to combat the greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming.
Since signing the Kyoto protocol in 1997, which committed the country to reducing its emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to 6 per cent lower than 1990 levels by 2010, Canada has seen its emissions rise.
It's now estimated that Canada would have to slash emissions by 26 per cent from projected 2010 levels to meet the target, making it one of the countries furthest from meeting its Kyoto commitments.
In addition to the open water at the North Pole, there have been other ominous signs that some believe are attributable to the changing climate. Hungry polar bears, unable to hunt on thinning ice, have been seen more frequently in Northern communities. Forest fires are larger and more frequent. The long-frozen Northwest Passage is thawing, and may soon be a navigable shipping lane.
The growing problem provoked a confrontation at the last meeting of federal and provincial energy and environment ministers, with representatives from Canada's territories complaining they were paying the ecological price for the economic growth of the country's southern provinces.
For more information on climate change, please see our Climate Change section, http://www.sustreport.org/issues/climate_ch.html
Parliamentary Bureau
The Globe and Mail
Tuesday, August 22, 2000
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