- OTTAWA (CP) -- A NASA study
warns that the rate of warming in the Arctic is speeding up and may be
a harbinger of climate changes that will affect the entire globe.
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- The rate of warming in the Arctic over the last 20 years
is eight times greater than the rate over the entire last 100 years, says
the study, to be published in the American Meteorological Society's Journal
of Climate.
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- NASA also reports that summer ice cover in the Arctic
has been declining at a rate of nine per cent a decade and is very close
to the record low set last year.
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- It warns that if the high latitudes continue to warm,
and ice cover continues to decline, the whole planet will be affected in
complex ways which are not yet understood.
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- "The people in this field agree that what happens
in the Arctic does affect the rest of the globe in a host of different
ways," said NASA spokeswoman Elvia Thompson in an interview.
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- "We don't know for sure if the changes that are
happening are due to natural variability or whether they're human-induced
changes or whether it's some combination."
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- Computer models have long predicted that the effects
of global warming will be felt first in northern latitudes, said Sean-Patrick
Stensil of the Sierra Club.
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- "As we go on it's confirmed over and over again
that climate change is happening."
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- NASA says Arctic temperatures are increasing at an average
of 1.22 Celsius per decade over most of the Arctic, although some areas
are actually cooling.
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- The biggest temperature increases are occurring over
North America.
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- The study is based on infrared satellite pictures taken
from space.
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- "The new study is unique in that, previously, similar
studies have made use of data from very few points scattered in various
parts of the Arctic region," said scientist Josefino Comiso of NASA's
Goddard Space Flight Centre.
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- http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Science/2003/10/27/238745-cp.html
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