Polar Ice Caps

Lately, you may have noticed, popping up in your Facebook feed, or reading the major news websites, some dry, fairly academic-looking images of the North Pole, coupled with stories about “record melting”.

This normally cool customer can't believe it. Photo: AP

You’d be forgiven for thinking that you’ve heard this story before, that the “polar ice melting” story is done to death. The idea of ice melting is, after all, tremendously mundane.

But this is no ordinary ice. This is the Arctic. It, too, melts all the time, which is why it’s so easy to overlook what’s happening at the moment. There is more to the melting of the polar ice cap than simply warm weather turning solid water to liquid. The Arctic ice is the canary in Earth’s coal mine – it is where the impact of the heating of our atmosphere hits first and hits hardest.

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  • andye says:

    07:39pm | 25/09/12

    @St. Michael - I assume that someone somewhere was that stupid at some stage or another, but do you really think that scientists thought that? This is something I could have told you in high school in the 80s. Read more »

  • iansand says:

    07:12pm | 25/09/12

    There has been a rise in CO2 over the last 150 years.  Has there been a concomitant rise in termite activity?  If not, termite production of CO2 is part of the natural carbon cycle that has been chugging along in reasonable balance for millions and millions of years.  As, incidentally,… Read more »

 

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