Evening star., 1941-04-29
Of Stors, Men
And Atoms
Notebook of SCIENCE Progress
In Laboratory. Field
And Study
By Thomas r. Henry.

The ice of the Arctic Ocean is melting
so rapidly that more than third Of 1t
has disappeared in so years.
This is the conclusion that may be
drawn from the remarkable drift of
the Russian icebreaker Sedov last
winter, first reports of which have just
been received in the United States. In
the fall of 1899 the Sedov was caught
| in the ice of the Laptev Sea between
| the northern coast of Siberia and the
| New Siberian Islands. She began to
drift northward and westward and on
January /, 1910, broke out on the edge
| of the Greenland Sea between the
northernmost point of Spitzbergen and
| Greenland. Then she returned to Muir
mansk with complete reports Of the
remarkable experience which were
| placed in the hands Of the Russian
meteorologist, N. N ZuboV, for detailed
| analysis.
The significance of the records of this
involuntary voyage come from compari-
son with those taken by the Norwegian
explorer NanSen in 1898. The specially
constructed ship, the Fran, followed
roughly similar course. NanSen re-
| corded a maximum ice thickness of 365
! centimeterS. In similar positions the
| captain of the Sedov found the greatest
| thickness was 218 centimeterS. The
lowest temperature he recorded was A
! below zero. Nansen ran into a mini
mum of So below Nansen's ship drifted
for nearly two years over course that
was covered by the zedov in about six
| months.
! The Zedov records are also better
! than the less reliable ones taken during
the winter of 1878 by the Russian
| North Pole flyer Papenin and his COM
! panions who drifted on an ice foe and
| are very similar to those of the Russian
| icebreaker Lenin which was caught in
! the same Laptev Sea little earlier than
| the Zedov but soon made its escape.
The higher winter temperatures,
American experts point, might be consid-
| cred temporary f1uctuation, but the ice
/ thickness measurements show clearly
| that the trend TO warmer weather in the
! Arctic basin must have been continuous
! for some years
! The Zedov evidence, it is pointed out
! in a report of the voyage in the cur
rent journal of the American Geogra-
! phical Society. confirms indications
from several other sources which have
! been accumulating during the past few
years. including the reports of the
! United States Coast Guard ice patrol
in the North Atlantic. Even allowing
/ for gross inaccuracies in the Russian
measurements, the geographic journal
explains that the speed of the Zedov
compared with that of the Fran, which
can be verified beyond question, shows
/ that the Arctic is getting much warmer.
( 1t means that the ice is moving much
faster from the Arctic basin into the
/ Greenland Sea. This could be accounted
! for bv an increase in the flow of warm
| Atlantic waters into the polar basin,
| which in turn would bring about reduc-
/ ton in the volume of ice in the seas
| bordering the Arctic, a decrease in the
| volume of polar ice and the size of
/ glaciers, and a rise in the winter tenn
perature of the air.
The analysis of the Zedov results, 1t is
/ explained, confirms some of the laws of
Arctic circulation first laid down by
| Nansen and makes possible the state
! ment of several other laws DR.. Zubov
/ confirmed especially that drift of ice is
| in the direction of the prevalent winds.
/ The gradual melting of the Arctic has
not vet been confirmed by sea level
measurements on the Atlantic and
Pacific Coast lines. There have been
speculations that if this should take
place suddenly it would result in flood
| ing some of the big Atlantic Coast line
cities of North America. There is also
speculation as to whether the course
| followed by the Sedov is a fair sample.
It IS known from geological and his
| torical evidence that the Arctic climate
is subject to great fluctuations. Great
coal deposits of Greenland and Spitz-
| bergen indicate that the climate was
| once semi tropical. 1t is also known
| that within historic times prosperous
Morse colony was established in Southern
| Greenland, but after about 300 years
was starved out, probably by a climatic
| change.
The reports of the captain OF the
| Zedov are supported, it is pointed out,
by the report just issued of University
| of Cambridge expedition in the winter
of 1888 to Jan Mayen Island, off the
eastern coast of Greenland. This is a
| Morse possession. 1t is extremely desc
! late and in the past its only use has been
| as a sentry post of the Arctic through
weather observing station maintained
| there by the Norwegian government.
| This has now stopped operations.
! Study of the scanty flora of the island,
| compared with the collections made by
! previous expeditions, convinced the Cam
! bridge explorers that Jan Mayen was
/ having definitely better winter tempera-
lures. They were the first to climb the
! islands chief volcano, 1880 feet high,
which they named in honor of the now
! exiIed King Haakon as tribute TO MS
sovereignty over the desolate spot.
The Sedov traversed a little known
region and found a great, impossible
| no mans area of hummocky ice extend
ing for many miles between the northern
shores of Franz Joseph Land and the
North Pole. 1t separates the. younger
ice formed mainly on the continental
shelf from the thicker ice near the pole.