NightBlogger

Independent
It seems unthinkable, but for the first time in human history, ice is on course to disappear entirely from the North Pole this year. The disappearance of the Arctic sea ice, making it possible to reach the Pole sailing in a boat through open water, would be one of the most dramatic – and worrying – examples of the impact of global warming on the planet. Scientists say the ice at 90 degrees north may well have melted away by the summer. “From the viewpoint of science, the North Pole is just another point on the globe, but symbolically it is hugely important.

There is supposed to be ice at the North Pole, not open water,” said Mark Serreze of the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Colorado. If it happens, it raises the prospect of the Arctic nations being able to exploit the valuable oil and mineral deposits below these a bed which have until now been impossible to extract because of the thick sea ice above. Seasoned polar scientists believe the chances of a totally ice-free North Pole this summer are greater than 50:50 because the normally thick ice formed over many years at the Pole has been blown away and replaced by huge swathes of thinner ice formed over a single year. More

The Mars Phoenix Lander has found ice on the surface of the Red Planet, triumphant NASA scientists said, a key discovery for the spacecraft as it searches for water and signs of life on Earth’s closet planetary neighbour. The proof came in a series of pictures sent back by Phoenix of a trench it dug with its robotic arm at the arctic circle of Mars, showing dice-sized chunks of white material that are seen to melt away over the course of several days.

“It is with great pride and a lot of joy today that I announce we’ve found the proof we’ve been seeking that this really is water ice and not some other material,” mission principal investigator Peter Smith, of the University of Arizona, said at a press conference. The presence of water on Mars is crucial because it is a key to the question of whether life, even in the form of mere microbes, exists or has has ever existed on Mars. On Earth, water is a necessary ingredient for life. More