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How is this not the biggest story in the world at the moment? Admittedly I haven't read an awful lot of newspapers but I've also hardly heard anyone discussing it...don't remember seeing a post on here about it either.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/08/31/eaarctic131.xml

scary or what? saw a bit about it on the news earlier

but hardly surprising baring in mind we have not that long been polluting the world but how much damage has it done in that time?

 real scary when the earth been around for millions of years

We'll be living in Waterworld before we know it.

surfs up dude.......

Close, the Earth is approximately 4.5billion years old.

errr, am I the only one who always thought it was an island anyway?

 ;indestructable;

No actually...but when you have perma, or now" not so perma", ice that have always (or atleast 125k years that we know) closed off the waterways surely it should be massive news when within a century man is responsible for opening up those waterways again....purely as a side effect from his behaviour in other parts of the world?

(It probably would have melted at some stage anyways as the earth goes through cycles..but the time frame in which this has happened is fairly drastic, no?)

The North pole hasn't.

It used to be the South pole.

Oh and what's interesting is the countries battling for rights to the territory.  Apparently countries automatically have 'rights' to the ocean 200 miles from their shores - but beyond that it gets a bit tricky.  Russia, Canada, USA, Norway and Denmark (via Greenland) are arguing about how much of the Arctic is theirs.  Apparently there's more oil there than in the Middle East - we just haven't been able to get to it before (still can't, but might be able to soon).

[  ] Rates Canada, Norway and Denmark's chances of getting much of that oil.

(http://cominganarchy.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2007/07/arctic-split.jpg)

I've never understood why people use this terminology. Sure, the earth's magnetic polarity has changed many times but south is still south. It's just that compasses would all have pointed to the other end.

It's all happened before. Well 25000 years ago but in geological terms that's just the blink of an eye

North and South are subjective though, aren't they?  The North is where the magnet on the compass points to  - isn't it (well the magnetic North Pole, I know it's in a slightly different location)?

I'm not sure that they are subjective - they are defined terms. My dictionary says that "south is downwards when you're looking in an atlas (at least when I'm holding it the right way up)". It is a limited edition, though.

I know what you're saying.  The North of England won't be South of the Watford Gap if the poles reversed.

The MacArthur world maps are interesting though:

(http://www.delaus.ec.europa.eu/images/upside_down_map.jpg)

Psssh, I've always resented being considered a Northerner because I live 20 miles north of Watford Gap.  Whoever came up with that anyway?

Disclaimer - Not that there's anything wrong with Northerners of course...

LOL @ Boldie making stuff up.

LOL at disputing it...I am not saying the icecaps wouldn't have melted on it's own but is anyone still seriously disputing man's impact on this? Even Jeremy Clarkson and George Bush don't.

LOL for using Jeremy Clarkson and George Bush to try and back up your argument. rotflmfao rotflmfao

I am disputing the "purely"  man's behaviour part of your post .

I'm not disputing that we should be more respectful of our planet but everytime something happens to nature or the climate it's very fashionable to blame it on what we are doing to the planet. Thus creating a whole industry of scaremongering, axe grinding "environmentalists"  and a reason for Governments to Tax us while they arse lick the Companies who cause the real Environmental problems around the globe.
Volcanoes spew out more CO2 than humans do and they have just discovered loads of volcanoes under the Arctic, maybe that's what caused it? the Earth might be going through one of its "warm cycles" for all we know that is what is causing it.
Anyway if it cuts 4000 miles off a trip from Europe to Japan for container ships then just think of all the emissions that won't be pumped into the atmosphere if it stays melted.

An inconvenient thread.

Did you know that,

Explorers were always getting lost at the north and south pole because of a strange effect a compass does when you get there.

You head off north, compass points north, ok so far.When you get there the compass starts to spin or randomly pointing anywhere, as it should

Now turn around and walk back the way you came. If your footsteps are gone your in trouble.

Any direction away from the pole is south. All directions point the same way, back to the pole.

If you don't leave marker posts and flags every half a mile your in big trouble

GPS has solved that of course, but years ago many explorers died getting lost on the way back

Oh gosh, that's confusing. I wish you hadn't posted that. I feel all dizzy now.  ;carlocitrone;
Does anyone produce an Atlas where it's all sideways? If not, why not?