Sweden, Finland in grip of lingering ice on the Baltic Sea; 5 icebreakers deployed

Sweden, Finland in grip of lingering ice on the Baltic Sea; 5 icebreakers deployed

www.alaskadispatch.com
April 5, 2013

Never before has so much ice built up so late in the year on the Baltic Sea and in Gulf of Bothnia between Sweden and Finland — and records have been kept for 50 years, according to Swedish news agency TT.

“We have never seen anything like this,” says icebreaking manager Ulf Gulldne, to the Swedish newspaper Örnsköldsviks Allehanda. A stubborn area of high pressure camped over Scandinavia has contributed to freezing temperatures late in the winter and to the new record.

On March 29, some 176,000 square kilometers of the Baltic were covered by ice. The previous record came in 2008, when just 49,000 square kilometers of sea ice were recorded as late as March 25.

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