A picture of a buoy anchored near a remote webcam at the North Pole shows a meltwater lake surrounding the camera on July 22.
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– North Pole Environmental Observatory / Thanks to Marc Lee
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Instead of snow and ice whirling on the wind, a foot-deep aquamarine lake now sloshes around a webcam stationed at the North Pole. The meltwater lake started forming July 13, following two weeks of warm weather in the high Arctic. In early July, temperatures were 2 to 5 degrees Fahrenheit (1 to 3 degrees Celsius) higher than average over much of the Arctic Ocean, according to the National Snow & Ice Data Center.
“Every summer when the sun melts the surface, the water has to go someplace, so it accumulates in these ponds,” said Jamie Morison, a polar scientist and principal investigator since 2000 with the North Pole Environmental Observatory. “This doesn’t look particularly extreme.”
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/07/31/santa-not-swimming-no-lake-at-north-pole-scientist-says/?intcmp=features#ixzz2b03zyktp