A massive, growing pool of icy meltwater in the Arctic Ocean is a wild card in future climate scenarios, with the potential to change European weather and marine life.
Estimated in 2009 at more than 7,500 cubic km - twice the volume of Africa's Lake Victoria - and growing, the water could flush quickly into the Atlantic with unpredictable effect when prevailing atmospheric patterns shift, as occurred most recently in the 1960s and 1990s.
The situation is one of many disquieting findings captured by project CLAMER, a collaboration of 17 institutes in 10 European countries to gather together the results of EU funded research into climate change and Europe's oceans and near-shore waters, and the Baltic and Black Seas.
Content : Arctic ice melt could change Europe's climate
Estimated in 2009 at more than 7,500 cubic km - twice the volume of Africa's Lake Victoria - and growing, the water could flush quickly into the Atlantic with unpredictable effect when prevailing atmospheric patterns shift, as occurred most recently in the 1960s and 1990s.
The situation is one of many disquieting findings captured by project CLAMER, a collaboration of 17 institutes in 10 European countries to gather together the results of EU funded research into climate change and Europe's oceans and near-shore waters, and the Baltic and Black Seas.
Content : Arctic ice melt could change Europe's climate