A Watery North Pole
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The North Pole under water? That was the surprising news from a cruise ship that made it to the North Pole in August. The passengers on this icebreaking cruise didn't really see Santa but they were planning a barbecue on the ice, right at the North Pole. But talk about the weather ruining the picnic; instead, the hungry travelers found a patch of open water, miles across, right at the pole. It's the first time humans have reported such a sight. But it's not completely out of line.

The Arctic sea ice is more like a living organism than a solid mass. Strong winds help push ice out of the Arctic. Meanwhile, new ice forms each winter. Every summer the snow melts atop the ice, leaving giant puddles. It's hard to watch all this happen by satellite, because it's usually so cloudy near the pole. But a new Canadian satellite uses radar to see through the clouds and follow the ice. Scientists can now track open areas that form near coastlines, and cracks in the ice that stretch pole ward up to a thousand miles.

So as disturbing as it is the open water isn't as eye-popping as the fact that the entire Arctic appears to be thinning out. On average, the ice is now about six feet thick, but that's only about half what it had been in the Fifties, according to measurements taken by submarines. A likely culprit: extra CO2 from fossil fuel combustion leading to global warming.

The Weather Notebook is a production of the Mount Washington Observatory. Sean Doucette and Diane Bowden engineer our show. I'm Dave Thurlow.