Olympic-size 'North Pole Lake' once again turns to ice

[Pterodactyl]

Source: Reuters


(Reuters) - Images of a scientific observation buoy floating in what appeared to be an Arctic lake near the North Pole lit up the online world in the past week, sparking questions about whether this was a sign of global warming.

On Monday, the scientist who installed the buoy gave a succinct answer: No.

Also, the buoy was never quite at the North Pole, oceanographer James Morison said in a telephone interview. Its most recent location is about 300 miles away.

...

The water the buoy was bobbing in last week was not a lake, but a melt pond, a common occurrence in the Arctic summer when the sun shines 24 hours a day, said Morison, principal oceanographer for the North Pole Environmental Observatory, funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/29/us-northpole-lake-idUSBRE96S16620130729

[Spitfire of ATJ]

1. See? Proof that global warming is a fraud!!!

If it had REALLY been the North Pole it would have shown Santa.

[XemaSab]

2. It didn't refreeze, it drained

At least 40 cm of ice was lost from the surface.

[PuffedMica]

6. Draining shows how thin the ice is

Somewhere in the melt pond, the ice at the bottom released the water into the Arctic Ocean. It probably has the consistency of a fresh Slushie.

[Jenoch]

3. I have to say, this is a story about nothing.

An Olympic size pool is 50 meters by 25 meters, or roughly 1/4 the size of a football field.

[pansypoo53219]

4. i have seen it get warm in sept,

a few years ago, it was ALL OPEN WATER. look at the archives.

[freshwest]

5. Uh, I got nothin'

[Igel]

7. The "north pole lake" was neither a lake or at the north pole.

And where were the people who like verifying claims by questioning evidence and examining the logic involved in the reasoning?

It fits our views. It must be true. What was the name for that?

[Yo_Mama]

8. It has been an abnormally cold summer in the Artic

I found this out by accident when I started searching for info after I saw the "North Pole cam" photo. It didn't take long to find out that it wasn't even near the North Pole, but this was the graph that surprised me:


This website (Danish) allows you to look at temps by year compared against the average:
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php

Very interesting. I guess northern countries do have to pay a lot of attention to this sort of thing. Due to the lower sunspot cycles, the latest Danish thing seems to be a worry about a new Maunder minimum (which I don't think will happen). Maybe a Dalton, but the odds have got to be against a Maunder.

[freshwest]

9. It was thinking more of a confusion of terms.

Magnetic North Pole is not a geographic certainty, but people think in terms of global maps, representing physical boundaries, not what scientists think about. There were news reports of the lines moving and affecting guidance systems for airplanes a few years back.

The Sun has cycles with changes like this, no reason to think the Earth doesn't. I've read of events in Scandinavia in which it was suspected methane bubbles came up from deep ocean currents and caused tsuanami type damage.

Interesting planet, not all practical for the human race, as some may think it was designed to be. We've been lucky to find a good niche to live in.