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MultimediaPapers
- -Arctic Ice Is Melting Fast (Christian Science Monitor)
"Arctic ice is melting at a near record pace, and it's darkening and absorbing too much of the sun's heat."
"Summer sea ice has been declining since satellites began tracking it in 1978. As a result, a region of the world that helps moderate global climate by reflecting sunlight back into space from its veneers of snow and ice is losing its reflective surface at a time when sunlight is strongest."
"In addition, the report notes that throughout the Arctic, permafrost is warming, even to depths of 20 meters (65 feet) below the surface. Arctic permafrost represents an enormous reservoir of carbon, mainly as methane. Molecule for molecule, methane is a far more-potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels and from land-use changes." 06-12
- Arctic Ice (NSIDC.org)
"The purpose of this site is to expose NASA satellite data and research on Arctic change, in the form of maps that illustrate the changes taking place in the Arctic over time. A high-speed internet connection is recommended for map viewing. This site is presented with support from NASA Earth Sciences." 03-16
- Arctic Ocean (Wikipedia.org)
"The Arctic Ocean, located entirely in the north polar region, is the smallest of the world's five oceans (after the Pacific Ocean, Atlantic Ocean, Indian Ocean, and Southern Ocean), and the shallowest." 10-04
- Exceptional Ecosystem Found Under Arctic Ice (New York Times)
"The quantities of plankton are 'truly exceptional,' says Walker Smith, a marine biologist at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va., who was not part of the team conducting the research."
"If these blooms are widespread under the ice along continental shelves, the primary productivity in these regions could be up to 10 times greater than open-water productivity, the team estimates."
"In addition, researchers have noted that the Arctic ocean is becoming an enormous sink for atmospheric CO2 as the waters open up in the summer. Yet the open waters in the Chukchi Sea don't show the levels of dissolved CO2 they should if that's the case. Now, it looks as though the answer lies with the under-ice phytoplankton blooms, because they consume the CO2 via photosynthesis, just as land plants do." 06-12
- Massive Island of Ice Breaks Off Greenland (CNN News)
"A piece of ice four times the size of Manhattan island has broken away from an ice shelf in Greenland, according to scientists in the U.S."
"The ice island, which is about half the height of the Empire State Building, is the biggest piece of ice to break away from the Arctic icecap since 1962 and amounts to a quarter of the Petermann 70-kilometer floating ice shelf, according to research leader Andreas Muenchow."
" 'The freshwater stored in this ice island could keep the Delaware or Hudson rivers flowing for more than two years. It could also keep all U.S. public tap water flowing for 120 days,' Muenchow said. 08-10
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