Arctic summer ice cracks shocks scientists

Paris: Satellite images taken in August have for the first time shown dramatic cracks in the Arctic's ice pack all the way to the North Pole, the European Space Agency (ESA) said here.

The cracks cover a geographic area larger than that of the Britain Isles, as they begin north of the Svalbard archipelago and run through the Russian Arctic, the ESA said Wednesday.

Observing data from Envisat's Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) and other instruments aboard the EOS Aqua satellite, scientists determined that between five and 10 percent of the Arctic's perennial sea ice had been fragmented by late-summer storms.

"This situation is unlike anything observed in previous low ice seasons," said Mark Drinkwater, of ESA Oceans/Ice Unit.

"If this anomaly trend continues, the North-East Passage between Europe and Asia will be open over longer intervals of time, and it is conceivable we might see attempts at sailing around the world directly across the summer Arctic Ocean within the next 10 to 20 years," he said.

During the last 25 years, satellites observing the Arctic have witnessed reductions in the minimum ice extent - the lowest amount of ice recorded in the area annually - at the end of summer from around eight million square kilometres in the early 1980s to the lowest-ever level of less than 5.5 million sq miles in 2005.

The change is widely regarded as a consequence of greenhouse warming. The reason for the new Arctic ice cracks is currently unknown, the ESA said, but they are believed to be the result of stormy weather conditions.