Document Type

Article

Publication Date

January 2008

Volume

8

Abstract

One need only to look at a comparison of summer Arctic ice extent from 1979 to 2007 to understand something significant is happening. In the span of a generation, the millennia-old Arctic has shrunk by roughly two-thirds and could easily be ice free in the summer within a decade. Or if that is not enough, consider that in the winter of 2008, a massive chunk of ice broke off from the Antarctic Peninsula, and another ice sheet the size of Northern Ireland (or Connecticut, if you prefer) hangs on by a thread. Over the past fifty years, the Arctic and Antarctic have warmed by around 3 degrees Celsius, roughly double the rest of the world. The goal, simply put, is to prevent this harbinger.

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