March 1, 2007
Scientists Watch Polar Areas for Changes
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 11:26 p.m. ET
PARIS (AP) -- Are we really heading for an ice-free Arctic? More
than 50,000 researchers hope to find an answer during a massive
study of how global warming and other phenomena are changing the
coldest parts of the Earth -- and what that means for the rest of
it.
Scientists formally kicked off the International Polar Year on
Thursday, the biggest such project in 50 years. It is unifying researchers
from 63 nations in 228 studies to monitor the health of the polar
regions, using icebreakers, satellites and submarines. The project
ends in March 2009.
Schoolchildren in Oslo, Norway, many with signs that said ''Give
us back winter'' or ''We want snow,'' built snowmen on the City
Hall square to mark Thursday's launch.
The director of the Norwegian Polar Institute described seeing
glaciers melt at an accelerated rate in recent years at his Arctic
outpost of Ny-Alesund.
The polar year is important because it is ''pooling the resources
of many countries in a coordinated effort to solve a major scientific
problem of our time,'' Kim Holmen said by telephone.
Global warming ''is the most important challenge we face in this
century,'' Prince Albert II of Monaco said in launching the project
in Paris. ''The hour is no longer for skepticism. It is time to
act, and act urgently.''
He noted an authoritative report released last month by the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change that said global warming is unequivocal,
very likely human-caused -- and will last for centuries.
A scientist on that panel warned that the world could be heading
for an ice-free Arctic, a proposition backed up Thursday by Ian
Allison, a co-chair of the International Polar Year committee and
researcher with the Australian Government Antarctic Commission.
''The projections are that ice in the Arctic will disappear in
the summer months. There will no longer be perennial ice ... sometime
within the next century,'' he said.
''This will have enormous consequences'' on the 4 million people
living in polar regions -- and well beyond, he said, as the melting
ice disrupts ecosystems all the way to the equator.
Russian geographer Vladimir Kotlyakov, who has studied polar regions
for 50 years and is a lead figure in the polar year project, was
skeptical of the predictions of an ice-free Arctic. But he did not
deny climate changes already were affecting Russia.
''We'll have to change our agriculture, our industry, even our
mentality as a frozen country,'' he said at the Paris event.
In stressing the global impact of the polar study, Michel Jarraud
of the U.N. World Meteorological Organization said a major breakthrough
of the last International Polar Year, in 1957-1958, was in scientists'
understanding of the tropics and their weather systems.
This time, the scientists are armed with much better technology,
especially satellites to study polar regions, known as the cryosphere.
They will study everything from the effect of solar radiation on
the polar atmosphere to the exotic marine life swimming beneath
the Antarctic ice.
The polar year is being sponsored by the U.N.'s World Meteorological
Organization and the International Council for Science. About $1.5
billion has been earmarked for the year's projects by various national
exploration agencies, but most of the money comes from existing
polar research budgets.
In classrooms around the world Thursday, teachers conducted ice-related
activities and experiments to call attention to the project, organizers
said.
Two leading researchers formally launched the project at Paris'
Palace of Discovery museum by slicing into an enormous cake made
to look like a glacier, topped with meringue and caramelized ''icicles.''
At the Oslo event, snowball skirmishes between children erupted.
''Just like me, I'm sure you want it to be possible to ski ...
in the future,'' Norwegian Crown Prince Haakon said.
Besides yielding a more complete picture of the impact of global
warming, the cooperation will help try to quantify the amount of
fresh water leaking out from underneath ice sheets in Antarctica.
Other projects include the installation of an Arctic Ocean monitoring
system, described as an early warning system for climate change,
and a census of the deep-sea creatures that populate the bottom
of Antarctica's Southern Ocean.
The Antarctic's lakes and mountains -- some trapped under about
3 miles of ice for more than 35 million years -- will be sounded.
Using telescopes, balloons and spacecraft, scientists at the poles
will investigate plasma and magnetic fields kicked up by the sun.
Anthropologists also are planning to study the culture and politics
of some of the Arctic's 4 million inhabitants.
------
Associated Press writer Doug Mellgren in Oslo, Norway, contributed
to this report.
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