Page 28 - ARUBA TODAY

A28 SCIENCE
Tuesday 15 augusT 2017

Science Says: Fast-melting Arctic sign of bad global warming

By SETH BORENSTEIN from November through
AP Science Writer March, when sea ice
WASHINGTON (AP) — One reaches its peak spread.
of the coldest places on BEYOND THE ARCTIC
Earth is so hot it’s melting. Of all the global warming
Glaciers, sea ice and a warning signs in the Arc-
massive ice sheet in the tic, “it is the sea ice that is
Arctic are thawing from screaming the loudest,”
toasty air above and warm Serreze said.
water below. The northern That’s a problem because
polar region is heating up a growing body of studies
twice as fast as the rest of connects dwindling sea
the planet and that’s set- ice to wild weather. The re-
ting off alarm bells. duced winter sea ice inter-
“The melting of the Arctic acts with warmer oceans
will come to haunt us all,” to change conditions in the
said German climate scien- air that then triggers a po-
tist Stefan Rahmstorf. tent noticeable shift in the
While global leaders set a jet stream, the giant atmo-
goal of preventing 2 de- spheric river that controls
grees Celsius (3.6 degrees much of our weather, said
Fahrenheit) of man-made Rutgers University climate
warming since pre-indus- In this July 21, 2017 file photo, researchers look out from the Finnish icebreaker MSV Nordica as the scientist Jennifer Francis.
trial times, the Arctic has sun sets over sea ice floating on the Victoria Strait along the Northwest Passage in the Canadian This theory is still debated
already hit that dangerous Arctic Archipelago. by scientists, but increas-
mark. Last year, the Arctic Associated Press ingly more researchers are
Circle was about 3.6 de- Sea ice is white and it re- Colorado. more across the Arctic and agreeing with Francis.
grees (6.5 degrees Fahren- flects the sun’s heat back ROLE OF WINTER get thicker in the winter so it It’s not just sea ice on the
heit) warmer than normal. into space. But when it Winter is crucial. Three times can withstand the warmth decline. Glaciers in the
CAUSES OF WARMING melts, it’s replaced with in the past two cold sea- of the summer. But a warm- Arctic are shrinking. And
Earth is getting hotter dark ocean that strongly sons, air temperatures near er winter means less pro- the massive Greenland ice
because of the buildup absorbs it, said former NASA the North Pole were near or tection when the heat hits. sheet is slowly but steadily
of heat-trapping gases chief scientist Waleed Ab- even a shade above freez- In September 2016, the melting and that can add
spewed into the air by the dalati, who heads the en- ing. That’s about 50 de- time of year the spread of a big dose to sea level rise.
burning of coal, oil and vironmental research pro- grees warmer than it should ice across the Arctic is at its Since 2002, it has lost 4,400
natural gas, according to gram at the University of be. From last November lowest, Arctic sea ice was billion tons (4,000 billion
decades of peer-reviewed Colorado. through February, Barrow, the second lowest day on metric tons) of ice.
research. Scientists have That heat gets transferred Alaska — the northernmost record, about 40 percent Then there’s the Arctic car-
long predicted the Arctic back up to the atmosphere U.S. city — was 7 degrees below the lowest day mea- bon bomb. Carbon diox-
would warm first and faster in the fall and winter. As Celsius (13 degrees Fahr- sured in 1979 when satel- ide and methane — which
than the rest of the globe. that happens, water va- enheit) warmer than the lite records started. Be- traps even more heat —
Real-time measurements por — a greenhouse gas 20th century average, and tween those two days 37 are stuck in the permafrost
are proving them right. — hangs around, trapping much of the Atlantic Arctic years apart, the Arctic lost in places like Alaska and
The Arctic is mostly ocean more heat. More clouds off Norway and Greenland enough sea ice to cover Siberia.
covered with a layer of form around that time, was as hot. Alaska, Texas and Califor- “Roast the Arctic and you
ice; changes from ice to also acting as a blanket, Warm winters weaken sea nia combined. create a mess everywhere
water often kick in a cycle said Mark Serreze, director ice, which floats on the Then it didn’t grow back on Earth,” said Princeton
that contributes to global of the National Snow and ocean surface. It’s sup- that much this winter, set- University climate scientist
warming. Ice Data Center in Boulder, posed to recover, spread ting record low amounts Michael Oppenheimer.q