Drive your car 4000km and its greenhouse gas emissions will melt three square metres of ice on the Arctic Ocean, according to a study that has found a direct link between carbon dioxide and shrinking ice. That made it possible to "grasp the contribution of personal carbon dioxide emissions to the loss of Arctic sea ice," scientists at Germany's Max Planck Institute for Meteorology and the US National Snow and Ice Data Center wrote in the journal Science. Each passenger taking a return flight from New York to Europe, or driving a car 4000km, would emit about a tonne of carbon dioxide, they estimated. A long-term retreat of Arctic sea ice is already causing profound changes, disrupting the lives of indigenous peoples while opening the region to more oil and gas exploration and shipping. Thursday's study said goals set under the 2015 Paris Agreement for curbing emissions were insufficient to avert the loss of ice.

Source: New Zealand Herald November 04, 2016 07:33 UTC