An Arctic Journey
DEVON ISLAND, Aug, 13, 2007
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(CBS) The Arctic, where the midnight summer sun kisses the horizon that never sets. It's the land of 24-hour daylight, and is home to some of the world's most beautiful — and most endangered — environments.
"There's not a whole lot of people that have been here and not a whole lot of people that have seen these things," says Bryon Gibbons.
Things like an iceberg or a musk ox — an animal you'll find only in this remote part of the world. It's scenery like this that continues to astonish Arctic veterans like Gibbons, a Canadian Coast Guard officer who's been coming to the region for 23 years.
But there's something else he's not seeing as much of: ice.
"There's definitely not the amount that used to be here," he says. "The concentrations are smaller. There's a lot more open water."
What Gibbons sees from sea level is even clearer from space. Satellite images show that Arctic sea ice has decreased substantially from 1979 to 2005.
This summer, scientists saw the most rapid reduction in sea ice in nearly 30 years.
Troubling observations like these brought together an international team to find out how dramatic changes here affect our global climate. They're making their way through the Arctic Ocean — a body of water larger than the United States — traveling aboard the Canadian icebreaker Louis S. St. Laurent, because while there's less ice, it's far from gone.
"Things are happening really rapidly in the Arctic," says geneticist John Nelson.
:SugarwareZ-189:
Scientists like Nelson are trying to keep up, reports CBS News science and technology correspondent Daniel Sieberg. Nelson is leading the expedition, studying the water and its creatures, like starfish, to see how climate change affects even the tiniest organisms.
"If we understand what things may be doing in the Arctic, because it's tied to climate pretty much everywhere in the globe, then we might be able to understand what might be happening as things warm up," he says.
In fact, 11 of the past 12 years have been the warmest worldwide since 1850. And, of course, warmer air impacts life both in the sea and on the land.
On Devon Island, a glacier slowly makes its way into the sea. As that happens, it can affect everything from the migration patterns of animals to the amount of light that's reflected back into the atmosphere.
Think of Arctic ice as a mirror, reflecting some of the sun's power back into space and helping to keep the earth cool. As ice disappears, temperatures go up and more ice melts.
We saw temperatures averaging close to 40 degrees, and while glaciers melt and freeze annually, a recent study found they are getting thinner and pouring more water into our oceans. So what may look like a river is runoff from the glacier. Even a few inches added to the world sea level could affect millions of people who live along coastlines.
But the question for oceanographer Eddy Carmack is how much the warming trend is being accelerated by humans and how much is part of a natural cycle.
"If we had been here, in the same spot 10,000 years ago, we wouldn't be standing on sea ice; we'd probably be on a glacier extending down off the coast of Canada. If we went back 120,000 years we might be treading water," Carmack says.
It's the immediate future that has Carmack and others gathering hard data to better predict what lies ahead for those of us living south of the Arctic Circle.
To read more about the Effects of Global Warming... click on the following link:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/08/13/eveningnews/main3163644.shtml?source=search_story
DEVON ISLAND, Aug, 13, 2007
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
(CBS) The Arctic, where the midnight summer sun kisses the horizon that never sets. It's the land of 24-hour daylight, and is home to some of the world's most beautiful — and most endangered — environments.
"There's not a whole lot of people that have been here and not a whole lot of people that have seen these things," says Bryon Gibbons.
Things like an iceberg or a musk ox — an animal you'll find only in this remote part of the world. It's scenery like this that continues to astonish Arctic veterans like Gibbons, a Canadian Coast Guard officer who's been coming to the region for 23 years.
But there's something else he's not seeing as much of: ice.
"There's definitely not the amount that used to be here," he says. "The concentrations are smaller. There's a lot more open water."
What Gibbons sees from sea level is even clearer from space. Satellite images show that Arctic sea ice has decreased substantially from 1979 to 2005.
This summer, scientists saw the most rapid reduction in sea ice in nearly 30 years.
Troubling observations like these brought together an international team to find out how dramatic changes here affect our global climate. They're making their way through the Arctic Ocean — a body of water larger than the United States — traveling aboard the Canadian icebreaker Louis S. St. Laurent, because while there's less ice, it's far from gone.
"Things are happening really rapidly in the Arctic," says geneticist John Nelson.
:SugarwareZ-189:
Scientists like Nelson are trying to keep up, reports CBS News science and technology correspondent Daniel Sieberg. Nelson is leading the expedition, studying the water and its creatures, like starfish, to see how climate change affects even the tiniest organisms.
"If we understand what things may be doing in the Arctic, because it's tied to climate pretty much everywhere in the globe, then we might be able to understand what might be happening as things warm up," he says.
In fact, 11 of the past 12 years have been the warmest worldwide since 1850. And, of course, warmer air impacts life both in the sea and on the land.
On Devon Island, a glacier slowly makes its way into the sea. As that happens, it can affect everything from the migration patterns of animals to the amount of light that's reflected back into the atmosphere.
Think of Arctic ice as a mirror, reflecting some of the sun's power back into space and helping to keep the earth cool. As ice disappears, temperatures go up and more ice melts.
We saw temperatures averaging close to 40 degrees, and while glaciers melt and freeze annually, a recent study found they are getting thinner and pouring more water into our oceans. So what may look like a river is runoff from the glacier. Even a few inches added to the world sea level could affect millions of people who live along coastlines.
But the question for oceanographer Eddy Carmack is how much the warming trend is being accelerated by humans and how much is part of a natural cycle.
"If we had been here, in the same spot 10,000 years ago, we wouldn't be standing on sea ice; we'd probably be on a glacier extending down off the coast of Canada. If we went back 120,000 years we might be treading water," Carmack says.
It's the immediate future that has Carmack and others gathering hard data to better predict what lies ahead for those of us living south of the Arctic Circle.
To read more about the Effects of Global Warming... click on the following link:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/08/13/eveningnews/main3163644.shtml?source=search_story