The head of the largest climate change study ever undertaken in Canada says the Arctic sea ice is thinning faster than expected. The 3-year study by nearly 400 scientists from around the world found disturbing trends:
“It’s happening much faster than our most pessimistic projections,” said University of Manitoba Prof. David Barber, the lead investigator of the Circumpolar Flaw Lead study. A flaw lead is the term for open water between pack ice and coastal ice.
The expedition, which began in 2007, involved 10 science teams that studied every aspect of the Arctic environment; as well as ice cover, microbes, pollution, animals, and weather systems were examined. Traditional aboriginal knowledge was also incorporated into the study. Barber, from the University of Manitoba, stated:
“We know we’re losing sea ice — the world is all aware of that. What you’re not aware of is that it has impacts on everything else that goes on in this system.“
Click here to read more at CBC.ca, or here for the Reuters.UK article.Vancouver Online also has a discussion of the findings, with links to the journal Geophysical Research Letters in which the investigation’s initial findings were published.
You might like to visit my page Arctic Sea Ice” for current information from several sources.
Alan