The Point of No Return

In the past couple of years, the media has been very vocal about the fact that the polar ice caps are melting. To most of us in the UK as well as elsewhere is the world this seems ominious enough, but all the same, a distant reality, almost something out of a science fiction movie.

Understandably so, because we are not directly affected by it, or rather not yet affected by it.

The fact still remains that near or far, each one of us on this planet contribute to this unalterable effect of climate change. Yet we understand so little of what is actually happening.

The Earth's polar ice caps are as we know located in the North and the South poles. The North Pole is covered by floating pack ice over Arctic Ocean. Portions of the ice that don't melt seasonally can get very thick, up to 3–4 meters thick over large areas, with ridges up to 20 meters thick. One-year ice is usually about a meter thick. The area covered by sea ice ranges between 9 and 12 million km². In addition, the Greenland ice sheet covers about 1.71 million km² and contains about 2.6 million km³ of ice. The land mass of the Earth's South Pole (in Antarctica), is covered by the Antarctic ice sheet. It covers an area of almost 14 million km² and contains 25-30 million km³ of ice.

The all time low for ice cover in the Arctic was reached in 2007. This year, ice cover is up by 23%. However most of this is fragile one-year ice and nevertheless represents the same risks to the eco systems of the North Pole. The backbone of the poalr icecaps are mutli-year ice sheets which are steadily in decline. Once lost these can never be refound, as they have taken 12,00 years to be formed.

The effects meting ice in the North Pole are numerous. Obviously, it causes sea levels to rise, putting whole communities close the Artic Sea at risk. Secondly, harmful effects on the natural habitat of Arctic animals such as the polar bear are quite serious. Most importantly, if a warmer Artic ocean emits heat into the atmostphere which affects global cimate pattern, to which no counrty or place, however distant is an exception.

This is where the story comes full circle: greenhouse emmissions cause our plane to heat and thus the polar ice caps to melt. Therefore, by cutting down on C02 emmissions every individual on this planet can help prevent irreperable damage to the polar ice caps.