Article content

There is a giant lake at the North Pole, which you can view live on the Internet. Or you’ll be able to see it until the site gets hit by a monster cyclone.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or The North Pole is a lake about to be hit by a monster cyclone Back to video

The North Pole Environmental Observatory has set up a webcam pointed at the Northernmost point of the Earth, which now shows a small, albeit cold, lake.

This type of melt isn’t so unusual during the summer season, however.

“I have seen much more extensive ponding,” James Morison, the principal investigator for the North Pole Environmental Observatory told The Atlantic Wire. “Because we use wide angle lenses the melt pond looks much bigger than it is.”

There is a second webcam pointed at the pole, which looks far less dire than the first.

“July is the melting month in the Arctic, when sea ice shrinks fastest,” Becky Oskin wrote at Live Science.

The idyllic vistas of the North won’t be staying so idyllic for long though. Soon the region will be hit by a summer cyclone.

Meanwhile, Arctic scientists are watching in fascination this week as a raging summer cyclone tears through the rotting sea ice of Canada’s North.

Some say the effect of the blasting winds could be greater than last summer’s giant cyclone, which contributed to record low sea-ice levels.

This storm may not be as strong as the one last summer that destroyed 800,000 square kilometres of ice.

But this year’s ice is weaker and thinner than last year’s and has already been battered by previous cyclones.

The shrinking extent of that ice has been linked with southern weather events such as heavy, long-lasting rain.

Scientists say such huge storms are one of the great unknowns in understanding the changing Arctic climate.