Holidays On Ice

He's at no immediate risk, but if Santa wants to stay high and dry year-round, he'll have to spend his summers elsewhere.

At the current rate of decline, the North Pole will be ice-free in summer by 2060, but new computer models suggest it could reach a largely ice-free state two decades earlier. And at least one foremost ice expert feels the thawing of the Arctic could come sooner still.

Dr. Mark Serreze of the University of Colorado tells the BBC:

My gut feeling is that it might be around the year 2030 that we really see a rapid decline of that ice. Now could it occur sooner? It might well. Could it occur later? It might well. It depends on the aspects of natural variability in the system. We have to remember under greenhouse warming, natural variability has always been part of the picture and it always will be part of the picture.

This much is known: the Arctic has not been recovering from summer melt as robustly as in the past. In November, the extent of sea ice was two million square kilometers below historical average. To put the figure in perspective, Dr. Serreze notes that the difference is "an area the size of Alaska."

Melting at the North Pole will not affect sea level as would melting on Greenland or Antarctica (for the simple reason that the ice cap is already floating). However, loss of the vast reflective surface of the Arctic ice cap would have a profound effect on global climate as the dark surface of the exposed ocean would absorb more solar radiation and thus speed warming.