A ship carrying scientists on a year-long international effort to study the high Arctic has returned to its home port in Germany carrying a wealth of data that will help researchers better predict climate change in the decades to come. “We went above and beyond the data collection we set out to do,” said Melinda Webster, a sea ice expert at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, whose work is funded by Nasa. “This is an extremely exciting time to get into Arctic science because of the changes that are happening,” she said. “We are watching the Arctic sea ice die,” he said, adding that it is possible there may be no summer sea ice in the Arctic soon. This would cause not just significant disruption to indigenous societies in the region but also interfere with the planet’s cooling system.

Source: Irish Independent October 12, 2020 07:30 UTC