Alaska is now ice-free and the Arctic is melting at an unprecedented rate. What next?

For centuries this area of the world was impenetrable due to extensive polar ice

Phoebe Weston
Science Correspondent
Tuesday 06 August 2019 21:00 BST
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Year on year the Arctic is losing an area of ice greater than the size of Scotland (file photo)
Year on year the Arctic is losing an area of ice greater than the size of Scotland (file photo)

The Northwest Passage was first navigated by Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen between 1903 and 1906. For centuries this area of the world had been impenetrable due to its extensive polar ice.

However, had these early 20th-century explorers attempted the crossing just 100 hundred years later, they would have found it plain sailing.

Year on year the Arctic is losing an area of ice greater than the size of Scotland. The news that Alaska is ice-free at the moment is the latest indication that our climate is now moving into unchartered territory.

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