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Multimillion Dollar Effort to Study Polar Ice Thaw |
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By Stephen Leahy *
The
International Polar Year begins in March, and will involve 50,000
scientists studying the impact of climate change at the poles. Canada
is the main contributor, donating 160 million dollars.
TORONTO, Canada, Jan 13 (Tierramérica) - The
recent collapse of a Canadian Arctic ice shelf illustrates why Canada
is the biggest contributor to the International Polar Year, the
world's largest scientific research program, focused on climate
change.
More than 60 nations,¬ from Chile to China, and 50,000 scientists
and researchers will be involved in the International Polar Year
(IPY) 2007-2008, actually a two-year period that will last from
Mar. 1, 2007 to the same date in 2009.
Canadian scientists recently reported the collapse of the Ayles
Ice Shelf, one of only six ice shelves left in Canada. At 66 square
kilometers and 40 metres thick, Canada's new ice island is small
compared with the collapse of giant Antarctic ice shelfs such as
Larsen B, an area of 2,700 square kilometres which broke off in
2002. However the 3,000- to 4,500-year-old Ayles shelf is the largest
collapse in 25 years.
Rather than large events, Arctic ice shelves have been quietly falling
apart in small pieces, and are 90 per cent smaller than 100 years
ago.
The IPY will study the Arctic and Antarctic regions, focusing on
the effects of global warming produced by greenhouse gases. It has
a budget of over 500 million dollars, to which Canada contributed
160 million.
"The rates of change in the polar regions are accelerating. These
regions are experiencing the impacts of climate change first, so
it's important to know what is happening to learn how we can adapt,"
biologist David Hik, chairman of IPY Canada, told Tierramérica.
"An ice-free Arctic during the summer months, predicted to occur
as soon as 40 years from now, will have a major impact on the region
and the local people," said Hik.
"The global climate system is a balance between the cold regions
and the warm regions of the planet," David Carlson, director of
the International Polar Year Programme Office, told Tierramerica
in an interview from Cambridge, United Kingdom.
Changes in these cold regions affect global weather patterns which
have a major impact on the well-being of the rest of the planet,
he said.
The last major international effort to study the world's coldest
regions took place 50 years ago and was called the International
Geophysical Year. It was a landmark scientific collaboration involving
67 nations that produced data still used today.
That was an era of exploration and discovery of remote and forbidding
regions of the world that had changed little in millions of years.
IPY scientists today feel an urgency to understand the linkages
between changing polar ice, oceans and permafrost and the rest of
the planet because of the potentially massive impacts, said Carlson.
For that reason even non-polar countries like China and Malaysia
are participating in the IPY. And since this is the largest international
scientific project in 50 years, it is a major opportunity for scientific
collaboration.
The IPY is organized by the International Science Council and the
World Meteorological Organization, and is sponsored by the United
Nations Environment Programme.
There is also lots of public interest resulting from wide media
attention on polar bears, penguins and climate change. And there
will also be major media interest over the next few weeks with the
upcoming release of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's
Fourth Assessment Report.
The product of six years of study by 2,500 scientists from 130 nations,
the report will include some new information on changes in polar
ice.
IPY researchers will not only study geophysical changes, they will
study the polar regions' marine and terrestrial ecology and, in
the Arctic, social and economic issues.
"There are also four million people living the Arctic region who
are already on the forefront of changing conditions that will affect
the rest of the planet," said Carlson.
Economic changes are also having a major impact in the region as
warming weather, combined with rising prices for resources like
oil, gas and minerals, has turned parts of the Arctic region into
the fastest growing communities in Canada, according to Hik.
"In just 15 years, Canada's north has become one of the world's
biggest diamond producers," he pointed out.
The Arctic basin potentially has 25 per cent of the world's undiscovered
oil and gas reserves. Despite the still harsh conditions, exploration
and development is booming throughout the region. A ten billion
dollar pipeline from the Arctic ocean and through Canada's Mackenzie
Valley to bring natural gas south is in the final planning stages,
he said.
Environmental groups have criticised U.S. IPY research projects
that collaborate with oil companies to hunt for fossil fuel reserves
in the Arctic.
"We're already approaching a critical threshold of global warming
... and the seeking out of further oil and gas deposits is going
to make that problem worse," Tony Juniper, British director of Friends
of the Earth, told The Associated Press last April.
International treaties prevent economic exploitation of resources
in the Antarctic. However the reality in the Arctic is that "one
day in the future there might be an oil rig sitting on top of the
North Pole" said Hik.
* Stephen Leahy is an IPS correspondent.
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