Icy wasteland it is not; Wild Water Kingdom it is!
According to the North Pole Environmental Observatory, the summer ice at the northernmost part of our planet has melted at an alarmingly high rate this year leaving naught but a lake of melted ice. The water absorbs more radiation than ice, increasing the heat of the surrounding area and thus speeding the melting even further. July is known as the melting month in the arctic, but this year is particularly bad. The National Snow & Ice Data Center has noted the temperature this year is 1-3 degrees Celsius higher than average over much of the Arctic Ocean. Melting ice has already forced scientists to leave the area, with Russia evacuating a research station back in May.
Three cheers for climate change!
[via Canada.com]
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Vidal Wu is an intern at Toronto Standard. You can follow him on Twitter at @vidalwuu.
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