The Impact of Climate Change on the Arctic

The extreme north and south of the planet are registering the most obvious changes due to global warming. The polar ice caps are important drivers of the world’s climatic system and the worldwide efforts to gain a clearer view of these changes is focusing on the Arctic and the Antarctic. The International Polar Year is a scientific program which will actually run over two years. One particular group is based in Iceland and Greenland. Their laboratory is a twin-engine plane fitted out in with sensitive equipment including four cameras mounted in the nose, tail and wings. They get an adapter using devices called drop sums that continuously measure atmospheric temperature and humidity as they fall through the air.

On the coast of Iceland a different groups are trying to understand the interaction between the icy winds and the ocean. Iceland has a number of especial features that makes studies of heat exchange particularly interesting. There’s a great deal of geothermal and volcanic activity in the country and much of the nation’s power comes in geothermal power stations. Work done here it will be used to help policy makers understand the implications of climate change.

When Hurricane Dennis hits the Caribbean in Florida, it was still early in the storm season and yet it was the fourth named storm. This made a record that look likely it will be broken again very soon. Scientist began using super computer models to create virtual storms. With increased air and ocean temperatures, the region connects big more severe storm activity more frequently. More accurate verification of global wind speeds will be available when the ail of satellite is deployed. From the sun synchronize orbit it will look cross section at the atmosphere. Its microwave sensors will be able to measure wind speeds through the atmospheric column. We realized that the atmosphere has no geographic boundaries. Airborne industrial waste in one area can fall as acid rain, in the forest thousands of kilometers away.

Changes in the atmosphere can be studied in great detail from an airborne observatory, so American and Canadian scientists teamed up to study greenhouse gases in the remote northern latitude of Canada. The atmospheric boundary layer experiment was the third in the series of NASA’s sponsored research expeditions. The aim was to study major eco systems around the world to better understand the dynamics of the atmosphere. With the help of McGill University, a ground based site was chosen in northern Quebec that featured forest and wet lands environment. Researchers built a 30-metered tower at the forest site to sample atmospheric chemistry and collect meteorological data.

Meanwhile, at the nearby wetlands NASA biospheric researchers spent countless hours measuring gases given off by these grass-like agents. Because of their hollow stems these plants are very efficient transporters of methane piping the gas directly into the sky. Balloons almost track local winds, temperatures and humidity and an electric aircraft flew repeated missions over the site.

Seven experiments took air samples and measured various chemical concentrations. An instrument that shoots the laser beam above and below the aircraft was used to pluck a cross sectional of the atmosphere. The reddish colors represent regions containing higher concentrations of ozone, another greenhouse gas.

The atmospheric boundary layer experiments were just one stage of NASA’s continuing efforts to understand the dynamics of the atmosphere. The American space agency also has a long established research program investigating cloud and storm patterns. The NASA team wants to learn why some weather formations develop into massive storms and why others simply dissipate.

The TC formation, the tropical composition, cloud and colonic coupling will help NASA identify key process to the effect global climate change and ozone depletion. The TC4 project is using seven NASA’s headlights through especially equipped aircraft in Costa Rica and Panama and more than 400 highly trained experts. Many areas concerning the chemical and the physical processors that occur in the lower in the atmosphere and its boundary with the stratosphere and not well understood.

A flying laboratory can analyze the chemical content and composition of the clouds. The sensor can detect carbon monoxide, methane, nitrous oxide, carbon dioxide and ozone. More detailed information is required to adequately incorporate processes such as cloud formation into global climate models.

The ER-2 is a high altitude research craft that can almost reach the stratosphere. It regularly reaches an altitude in excess of 22,000 meters. A special pressure suit has to be worn by the ER-2 pilots but its extreme operational altitudes, atmospheric pressure is very low and human could not survive without the suit. Researchers from Costa Rica’s National Center of High Technology are supporting the NASA project by carrying out complimentary test using meteorological balloons.

The package beneath the balloons samples the air for various gases, levels of humidity and continuously transmits the information back to the ground. By combining the information from all the platforms, TC4 project will build a three-dimensional picture of cloud formations converting all the richness and complexity of the earth’s varied environments into a computer simulation will behave the same way as the planet itself was a difficult and inexact task.

Extreme weather events can be predicted with pairing degrees accuracy to dissimilate what would happen to the earth’s climate over the coming decades is extremely complicated. An Anglo-Japanese computer known as the earth’s simulator is 40 times faster in any comparable machine in operation. By entering different variables scientist can see the possible long-term effects of climate change as it may develop. A view emerging as the global warming would ultimately trigger another Ice Age, plunging the world into conditions that existed 20,000 years ago.

What is searcher if the carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels is holding more warm in the atmosphere and the short term these seems to be changing weather pattern and we’re experiencing more extreme storms, droughts and heat waves. Also the planet is more vulnerable. Coastal regions which have been subject to flooding with extreme weather events are already taking a heavy toll in densely populated areas of Burma, Bangladesh and India.