Arctic ocean warms up. A sense of déjà vu.

Although the first part below has been reported elsewhere on the Blogosphere, it may be new to some readers, so I recommend that at least the first link be followed.



"The Arctic ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and in some places the seals are finding the water too hot, according to a report to the Commerce Department yesterday from Consul Ifft, at Bergen, Norway.



Reports from fishermen, seal hunters and explorers, he declared, all point to a radical change in climate conditions and hitherto unheard-of temperatures in the Arctic zone. Exploration expeditions report that scarcely any ice has been met with as far north as 81 degrees 29 minutes. Soundings to a depth of 3,100 meters showed the gulf stream still very warm.


Great masses of ice have been replaced by moraines of earth and stones, the report continued, while at many points well known glaciers have entirely disappeared. Very few seals and no white fish are found in the eastern Arctic, while vast shoals of herring and smelts, which have never before ventured so far north, are being encountered in the old seal fishing grounds."


This report is from that venerable publication, the Washington Times.


But it's not all bad news. "Cairn Energy, a corporation based in Scotland, recently began drilling oil wells in waters off Greenland's coast." complains Greenpeace spokesman and senior climate campaigner Ben Ayliffe in a comment published in Al Jazeera . Referring to the recent impact of Global Warming, he continues "It's a terrible irony that melting ice caps are (now) allowing companies and even governments to open up the possibilities of new oil developments"


I wonder if he realises just how ironic?


A guest post by Joe Public.

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