CNN In Peril

From CNN.com, Team battles Arctic winter to measure melting ice caps

(CNN) -- It could be the ultimate test of human endurance: Three British explorers are risking their lives in subzero temperatures to measure the melting Arctic ice cap.
A member of the polar exploration team perches on skis inside the Arctic Circle.

The team is on a three-month, 621-mile (1,000-kilometer) hike to their final destination at the North Pole. Along the way, taking precise measurements to determine exactly how fast the ice cap is disappearing.

"It's extremely difficult to live out here. It's very, very easy to get cold injuries in seconds," said Martin Hartley, team photographer and filmmaker, via satellite phone.

The team has been braving temperatures as low as minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit/Celsius spending their nights sleeping in tents and their days trudging across the shifting, barren polar expanse.

I wonder how much ice breakup is caused by the icebreaker they most likely used to get there in the first place.

Some select excerpts:

"In 2007, sea ice loss was the worst in recorded history," said oceanographer Kate Moran, professor of oceanography and ocean engineering at the University of Rhode Island.

Well, in the history of satellite observation of the poles anyway, not a very long time. And of course that sea ice loss wasn't due to ambient air temperature or sea surface temperatures (SST) in the Arctic, but to wind and ocean currents driving more of the ice into warmer southern waters.

The last time that scientists can say confidently that the Arctic was free of summertime ice was 125,000 years ago, according to the Web site of the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado.

So, a sea-ice-free Arctic isn't unprecedented. What's the emergency then? Polar bears were around then, and didn't go extinct. Actually they can't confidently say anything about the Arctic beyond 50 or so years ago.

The Arctic sea ice acts as a natural sunlight reflector, protecting the Earth from overheating.

As the ice thins, more sunlight passes through, further warming the ocean and accelerating the effects of climate change.

This feedback loop could have catastrophic consequences for people living in coastal areas and many animal species, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations governing body on climate change.

But, if the Arctic was ice-free before, and no "feedback loop" caused anything catastrophic to occur then, again, What Catastrophe? I'd like to know how melting sea ice can cause catastrophically rising sea levels, but that's not explained in the article.

Perhaps the "catastrophe" is simply that people with coastal property might have to purchase more insurance. I can see where that might be a problem. But a catastrophe?