Jökull - 01.12.1972, Page 7

AG
NOV
Fig. 3.
Sea ice in the
vicinity o£ Ice-
land July—Dec-
ember 1940—’49.
3. mynd.
Hafís við strend-
ur íslands júli—
desember 1940—
’49.
JÚL
1940-49
SEPT OKT
DES
since 1930, at least in the vicinity of Greenland
and Iceland. It is to be expected that military
reconnaissance aircraft traversed the area, but
if they made ice observations, they were not
distributed internationally. Systematic ice re-
search must have been carried out in these
years, but probably a much greater emphasis
was placed on research in the polar sea itself,
rather than its fringe area.
One can further think of two factors, which
may have partly caused the lack of ice observa-
tions. One is, that seal catching irt the East
Greenland ice probably never reached its pre-
war level. The other reason was, that in Ice-
land at least, people had lost interest for the
sea ice. It did not cause any great trouble
for navigation and other activities. Even if it
was still adrift far out at sea, it hardly ever
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