For Arctic Scientists, Tracking Ice Losses "Like The Hockey Final" - CanWest News

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For scientists, this year's ice season was like the NHL playoffs. They placed bets, pored over satellite images, and speculated endlessly on how much Arctic ice would survive the summer. "Everyone was following it," said Louis Fortier, scientific director of the Arcticnet, which funds and co-ordinates much of Canada's polar research. "It was like the hockey final."

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In the end, the ice cap survived for at least another year. The U.S. National Ice and Snow Data Center is expected to issue its wrap-up report Thursday, which will confirm 2008's Arctic retreat as the second worst on record after 2007's stunning loss.

But the ice that survived is in precarious shape heading into the winter. Most of it is first-year ice less than a metre thick, says Walt Meier, a research scientist at the U.S.-based centre, which tracks the ice by satellite as it waxes and wanes through the year. Thick, multi-year ice used to cover much of the Arctic Ocean year-round. All that is left of that cement-like ice is now jammed up in a strip against Canada's Arctic islands and northern Greenland.

The rest of the old, hard ice either melted this summer or was flushed down into the Atlantic Ocean, where it disintegrated. "We're left with much less multi-year ice compared to the same time last year," said Meier. "So even though there is more ice total, most of it is the first-year variety that is pretty thin." In many ways, 2008 was "as remarkable or even more remarkable" than 2007, he says, because the ice did not bounce back despite summer conditions that were much cooler than the 2007 Arctic heat wave.

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http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=40174ff0-4bc6-4b09-853b-7a3a55868f3d

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