The Arctic Ocean, which experienced record melting last year, could be ice-free in the summer as soon as 2013, decades ahead of what the earlier models told us.
The summer of 2007 saw record melting of Arctic sea ice, and NASA scientists now predict that the Arctic could be ice-free as soon as the summer of 2013.
Over centuries, hundreds died in the doomed search for an ice-free Northwest Passage between Asia and Europe, many of them victims of ill-fated stabs at national and personal glory.
Ice-free Arctic may come as soon as 2054, study says Cruise ships and oil tankers may be sailing through ice-free waters of the Arctic as early as 2054, according to a new study that narrows to a handful of years the uncertainty of when this climate-change milestone will occur. Previous studies have pegged it to everywhere between 2015 and 2100.
July 16, 2013 - NBC NEWS