Word: arctic
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Here's a tip for anyone trying to figure out when and whether global warming might arrive and what changes it will bring: hop a plane to the Arctic and look down. You'll see that climatic changes are already reworking the far-north landscape. In the past two decades, average annual temperatures have climbed as much as 7[degrees]F in Alaska, Siberia and parts of Canada. Sea ice is 40% thinner and covers 6% less area than in 1980. Permafrost--permanently frozen subsoil--is proving less permanent. And even polar tourists are returning with less than chilling tales...
...degrees] north, with gulls fluttering overhead, and they had the pictures to prove it. The newspaper declared that such an opening in polar ice was possibly a first in 50 million years, though that claim was dismissed by scientists who nonetheless see other serious signs of Arctic warming (see box, page...
...houses sinking up to their window sashes as the ground liquefies. In parts of the wilderness, the signal is more clear: wetlands, ponds and grasslands have replaced forests, and moose have moved in as caribou have moved out. On the Mackenzie River delta in Canada's Northwest Territories, Arctic-savvy Inuit inhabitants have watched with dismay as warming ground melted the traditional freezers they cut into the permafrost for food storage. Permafrost provides stiffening for the coastline in much of the north; where thawing has occurred, wave action has caused severe erosion. Some coastal Inuit villages are virtually marooned...
These isolated dramas play out far from the mid-latitudes of the planet, where the vast majority of people live, but they could soon have serious implications for all of us. What is really at risk in the Arctic is part of the thermostat of the earth itself. The difference in temperatures between the tropics and the poles drives the global climate system. The excess heat that collects in the tropics is dissipated at the poles, about half of it through what has been nicknamed the ocean conveyor, a vast deepwater current equivalent to 100 Amazon Rivers. Much...
Without action, major changes appear inevitable. Should surface water temperatures in the high Arctic rise just a few degrees, the sea ice could disappear entirely, but even a partial melting could devastate the northern hemisphere's climate. A combination of melting ice, increased precipitation and runoff from melting glaciers on land could leave a layer of buoyant freshwater floating atop the denser salt water, at a point in the North Atlantic where water ordinarily cools and sinks. The lighter freshwater wouldn't sink, interrupting the vertical circulation at a crucial point in the cycling of heat through the ocean...