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The Open Polar Sea was a hypothesis that an ice-free ocean surrounded the North Pole. This unproven (and eventually, demonstrated false) theory was once so widely believed that many exploring expeditions used it as justification for attempts to reach the North Pole by sea, or to find a navigable sea route between Europe and the Pacific across the North Pole.
The theory that the north polar region might be a practical sea route goes back to at least the 16th century when it was suggested by Robert Thorne. William Barents and Henry Hudson also believed in the Open Polar Sea. For a time, the theory was put aside due to the practical experience of navigators who encountered inpenetrable ice as they went north. But the idea was revived again in the mid-19th century by theoretical geographers such as Matthew F. Maury and August Petermann. At this time, interest in polar exploration was high due to the search for John Franklin's missing expedition, and many would-be polar explorers took up the theory, including, notably, Elisha Kent Kane, Dr. Isaac Hayes, and George De Long. It was believed that once a ship broke through the regions of thick ice that had stopped previous explorers, a temperate sea would be found beyond it.
Given that we know today that the North Pole is covered with thick ice, the idea of the Open Polar Sea seems patently ridiculous. However, at the time the theory was popular, its proponents made many arguments to justify it, including:
- Since sea ice only forms in proximity to land (now known to be a false theory itself), if there were no land near the North Pole, there would be no ice.
- Since there is perpetual sun during the Arctic summer, it would melt all the ice.
- Russian explorers found large areas of open water north of Spitzbergen, so surely there were other areas of open water elsewhere.
- Extrapolation of temperature readings taken in subpolar regions indicated that the region of greatest cold would be at about 80° north instead of at the pole.
- Migration patterns of certain animals seemed to suggest that the polar region was a hospitable place for them to live.
The Open Polar Sea theory was debunked gradually by the failure of the expeditions led by Kane, Hayes, and De Long. Other explorers such as George Nares also found nothing but more ice in the regions where the Open Polar Sea was supposed to exist. By the time Fridtjof Nansen and Otto Sverdrup drifted through the polar ice pack in Fram in 1893-1895, the Open Polar Sea theory was defunct.
However, scientific studies in the 2000s of climate change, project that by the end of the 21st century, the annual summer withdrawl of the polar ice cap could expose large areas of the Arctic Ocean as open water. Although the North Pole itself would remain ice-covered, a navigable seasonal sea passage from Europe to the Pacific could develop along the north coast of Asia.
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