By 2070, the Arctic could be a stagnant polluted sea (Image: Jonathan Hayward / Rex Features) Churning it up. The Transpolar Drift and Beaufort Gyre keep the Arctic sea moving (Image: LANL)

WITHIN 60 years the Arctic Ocean could be a stagnant, polluted soup. Without drastic cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions, the Transpolar Drift, one of the Arctic’s most powerful currents and a key disperser of pollutants, is likely to disappear because of global warming.

The Transpolar Drift is a cold surface current that travels right across the Arctic Ocean from central Siberia to Greenland, and eventually out into the Atlantic. …