A collage of melting sea ice in the Kane Basin between Greenland and Canada’s Ellesmere Island in August of 2016. No wonder, perhaps, that on Wednesday, the outgoing Obama administration convened top science policymakers from 25 other Arctic and non-Arctic nations, as well as representatives of Arctic indigenous peoples, in a first-ever Arctic Science Ministerial to coordinate study of what the consequences will be as the Arctic heats up much more rapidly than the more temperate latitudes or the equator. We can’t say, for example, how much CO2 and methane emissions from the Arctic are actually going up. The U.S. Office of Naval Research, meanwhile, is starting a project next year called the Arctic Mobile Observing System to deploy measuring devices atop floating sea ice, or autonomous submersibles below it, to gather better ice and ocean measurements. “The White House [Arctic Science Ministerial] is an important opportunity to focus attention on and mobilize resources for the critical issue of the global consequences of climate change in the Arctic,” said Phillip Duffy, the president of the Woods Hole Research Center.

Source: Washington Post September 28, 2016 21:07 UTC