Jennifer Scott 2 Columns
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The Freezer Defrosts
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Dramatic melting of sea ice due to global warming is having a major impact on the polar region - John Vidal
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Arctic sea ice is set to reach its lowest ever recorded extent as early as this weekend, in “dramatic changes” signalling that man-made global warming is having a major impact on the polar region.
Arctic Ocean is intimately linked with the climate systems around it, making it more sensitive to changes in climate,” said a spokesman for the NSIDC. After setting out from northern Norway last week to witness this year’s record sea melt in the Arctic, we reached the edge of the Arctic polar ice cap this morning. It’s far further north than expected, at around 82 degrees N, but the annual sea ice retreat here has been nowhere near as great as on the Alaskan side of the ice cap, where it has dramatically pulled back hundreds of miles further than usual. The plan was to send our Danish ice pilot and a photographer up in a helicopter to examine the ice scape, but it was far too foggy and the Norwegian chopper pilot wasn’t going up for anyone. There has been much to see, though. Like two polar bears hunting just 150 yards from the boat. We sounded a respectful warning horn as we passed them on our port side but they barely registered us. More remarkably, we saw distinct human footprints on another ice floe.
“In the last few days it has been losing 100,000 sq km a day, a record in itself for August. A storm has spread the ice pack out, opening up water, bringing up warmer water. Things are definitely changing quickly.”
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ocean to oil and mining as well as to more trade. This year at Scientists at the Danish Meteorological Institute, the Arctic least 20 vessels are expected to travel north of Russia between Regional Ocean Observing System in Norway and others in northern Europe and the Bering straits. Last week a Chinese Japan have said the ice is very close to its minimum recorded in icebreaker made the first voyage in the opposite direction. 2007. The University of Bremen, whose data does not take into “Every one of the 56,000 Inuits in Greenland have had to adapt account ice along a 30km coastal zone, says it sees ice extent to the retreat of the ice,” said Carl-Christian Olsen, president below the all-time record low of 4.33m sq km recorded in of the Inuit Circumpolar Council in Nuuk, Greenland. “The September 2007. permafrost is melting and this is jeopardising roads and buildings. Ice volume in the Arctic has declined dramatically over the past The coastline is changing, there is more erosion and storms, and decade. The 2011 minimum was more than 50% below that of there are fewer mammals like polar bears. It means there can 2005. According to the Polar Science Centre at the University be more mining, which is good for the economy, but it will have of Washington it now stands at around 5,770 cubic kilometres, unpredictable effects on social change”. compared with 12,433 cu km during the 2000s and 6,494 cu km in 2011. The ice volume for “Only 15 years ago I didn’t expect to see such Research published in Nature today said that warming in the 31 July 2012 was roughly dramatic changes – no one did.” Antarctic peninsula, where 10% below the value for temperatures have risen about 1.5C over the past 50 years, is the same day in 2011. A new study by UK scientists suggests that “unusual” but not unprecedented relative to natural variation. 900 cu km of summer sea ice has disappeared from the Arctic The research by Robert Mulvaney of the British Antarctic Survey, Ocean over the past year. Cambridge, based on an ice-core record, showed that the The consequences of losing the Arctic’s ice coverage for the warming of the north-eastern Antarctic peninsula began about summer months are expected to be immense. If the white sea 600 years Temperature increases were said to be within the ice no longer reflects sunlight back into space, the region can be bounds of natural climate variability. expected to heat up even more than at present. This could lead The difference between the rate of warming at the two poles is to an increase in ocean temperatures with unknown effects on attributed to geographical differences. “Antarctica is a continent weather systems in northern latitudes. surrounded by water, while the Arctic is an ocean surrounded In a. Data shows us that the frozen north is teetering on the Wind and ocean currents around Antarctica isolate the continent brink. From global weather patterns, keeping it cold. In contrast, the Longer ice-free summers are expected to open up the Arctic
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