Research paints stark new picture of polar warming
Posted on February 27th, 2009By: Nathanial Gronewold
ClimateWire: UNITED NATIONS — The international community’s knowledge and understanding of the extreme ends of the earth has vastly expanded thanks to a successful Arctic and Antarctic research campaign now wrapping up, the United Nations’ World Meteorological Organization reported yesterday.
Scientists now know for certain that ice cover is diminishing, ocean temperatures are warming and both flora and fauna are on the move as the polar regions continue to experience climatic changes on a scale more rapid than even previous forecasts by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had anticipated. And better and more up-to-date information should also provide knock-on benefits to other fields beyond the study of climate change, they say.
Summarizing two-years’ worth of intensive field investigations encompassed under the International Polar Year, or IPY, a joint initiative by the World Meteorological Organization and the International Council for Science set to close next month, the two groups launched the “State of Polar Research” report yesterday from Geneva. Their final overview lists where and how scientific appreciation of the poles has advanced as governments and research institutes have grappled with the problem of comprehending the impacts of higher concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
Organizers behind IPY say their endeavor has conclusively proved several key facets of the climate change debate and has helped to tie up other loose ends in the data. Thousands of scientists from 60 countries participated in roughly 160 separate studies from 2007 to 2008, all aimed at getting a better grasp of how climate change is shaping environments in the poles and around the world.
First new mapping in more than a half-century
Among the endeavors yielding the most fruit were massive aerial surveys scientists conducted of the Arctic Ocean, Antarctica and Greenland to map the ice pack and underlying bedrock using ultra-sophisticated radar and geographic equipment. The last such mapping exercise occurred in the late 1950s as part of another major multinational research project.
“Airborne surveys, using sophisticated ice-penetrating radar and other geophysical systems, have been used on a scale not seen since the International Geophysical Year 1957-1958,” the report’s authors say. “For the first time, these collaborative surveys have reached places that no single nation could reach alone.”
The IPY effort also encouraged scientists to explore large areas of the world never before covered. The 2007-08 research campaign also saw teams visiting places not seen by science for more than 50 years as they gathered fresh ice core samples and snowpack data.
The aerial surveys confirmed that the summer Arctic ice cap is diminishing, having shrunk by about 1 million square kilometers at the highest point. Over the summers of 2007 and 2008, the extent of Arctic ice reached the lowest levels since satellite record-keeping began, while the North Pole found itself encased in relatively thin ice for the first time since observations started.
Through measuring the changing elevation and gravitational fields of the massive Antarctic and Greenland ice caps, the polar research report says, the scientific community is now certain that the world’s largest concentrations of land-based ice are melting, threatening sea level rises globally.
Ice sheets losing mass and raising sea level
“These assessments continue to be refined, but it now appears certain that both the Greenland and the Antarctic ice sheets are losing mass and thus raising sea level, and that the rate of ice loss from Greenland is growing,” the report says.
As a consequence of the melting of continental ice caps, IPY researchers say, the waters of the Southern Ocean surrounding Antarctica have warmed faster than anywhere else on average. The colder bottom waters of the ocean are also becoming less salty as melting land ice dumps ever larger quantities of fresh water into the sea.
Scientists have long worried that meltwater from the Greenland ice sheet could dilute the salt content of the northern Atlantic Ocean, possibly disrupting ocean currents that deliver warmer air to Europe and that keep the continent from getting too cold in winter. But a similar effect to the Southern Ocean wasn’t expected prior to the new findings.
The International Polar Year has also apparently yielded greater understanding of weather patterns that meteorologists can apply to fresh forecasting. Part of the research effort found that subtle variances in North Atlantic oceanic conditions have a strong effect on the strength and movement of storms, contributing the largest source of heat influx into the Arctic region.
IPY researchers were also able to document dramatic changes in Arctic vegetation, including increasingly frequent infestations by bugs and fungi. One likely culprit: melting permafrost throughout the Arctic Circle. Last week, scientists revealed that the permafrost temperatures in northern Russia have risen on average by 1 to 2 degrees Celsius for the past 35 years.
Further probes into the emissions from melting permafrost
The world also enjoys a better understanding of the biological diversity of both terrestrial and marine life in the high Arctic and Antarctic, thanks in large part to IPY and a sister initiative, the Census of Marine Life. The Census is a decade-long globally coordinated effort to catalog all known oceanic species on the planet by 2010.
Discoveries of ecosystems thriving in some of the harshest environments on Earth led to two areas of roughly 400 square kilometers each being registered for protection under the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources.
The polar research drive “set ambitious goals that have been achieved, and even exceeded, thanks to the tireless efforts, enthusiasm and imagination of thousands of scientists,” said International Council for Science President Catherine Bréchignac.
Many of the 160 research projects are slated to continue as governments have expanded existing Arctic and Antarctic research facilities and have added new ones. Scientists are especially eager to track lost biodiversity and to determine whether melting permafrost is causing massive amounts of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, to be released into the atmosphere.
“The full scientific legacy of IPY will evolve in the years and decades following the completion of the observational program,” the World Meteorological Organization said.