coolmelbourne.org

Antarctica, the Arctic and Greenland: the world’s last great wilderness areas, home to unconquered frontiers, unfathomable challenges and awe-inspiring scenery. Now they are melting, breaking up, and disappearing. Climate change and global warming are creeping into these icy worlds causing changes that will potentially devastate large areas of these regions as well as large parts of the planet.

'The continent (Antarctica) has become a symbol of our time. The test of man's willingness to pull back from the destruction of the Antarctic wilderness is the test also of his willingness to avert destruction globally. If he cannot succeed in Antarctica he has little chance of success elsewhere.'

Edwin Mickelburgh

MYTH

The Polar Regions are not important sources of data for climate change and global warming. The polar-regions are not melting. The changes that we’re seeing in the Polar Regions is simply natural changes not the result of human actions.

FACT

The Arctic is home to the North Pole, polar bears and Santa (yet to be scientifically confirmed). There is no landmass at the North Pole, only floating ice. In September 2007, this floating ice cap melted and shrank to the smallest it has ever been, shattering the previous record set in 2005.

The following year of 2008 saw a slight improvement on the downward spiral. The Arctic is the planet’s air-conditioner it cools the hot air from the tropics. As more and more ice is melted, less sunlight is reflected back into space leaving more dark ocean exposed to the sun. This ocean soaks up more sunlight. The ocean warms and melts more ice.

Antarctica is home to a rich and diverse collection of whales, seals, penguins, albatross, fish and krill. The landmass of Antarctica holds 70% of Earth's fresh water, frozen as ice. Unlike the Arctic, where melting ice will not affect sea levels (much like ice in a drink), melting ice in Antarctica has a direct impact on sea levels. It causes them to rise.

In 1993 the scientists of the British Antarctic Survey predicted that the Wilkins ice shelf would be stable until 2023. In early 2008 this ice shelf started breaking up. The reason? The greatest temperature rise in the world has occurred in the Antarctic Peninsula in the past 50 years: a rise of 2.5 degrees! And with that rise comes the melting.

The third big slab of ice on Earth is Greenland. Along with the Arctic and Antarctica, it is often referred to as the 'canary in the coal mine', due to the sensitive nature of its ice sheets to changes in temperature. Greenland’s Ice Sheet partially melts and then refreezes with winter snows each year. The canary seems to have gone a little quiet.

From the 1960s until the early 1990s the Greenland Ice Sheet mainly responded to localised climate shifts. The last 15 years have seen a shift and Greenland is now being clearly affected by global warming. Glaciers are moving more quickly than at any other time.

ARTICLES