Joe Raedle / Getty Images file
Our Year of Extremes: Did Climate Change Just Hit Home?
The
dazzling icescape at the top of our planet is mutating into a place
that is barely recognizable to those who have studied it for years.
The
Arctic is home to some of the world's most dramatic climate change,
scientists say, with warming oceans and air melting ice at a rate
experts never imagined possible. The warming there has drastic
implications for the rest of the earth, scientists say.
"The Arctic is a very
useful bellwether of change, and it's ringing," Jason Box, an American
glaciologist, told NBC News' Ann Curry. Curry traveled to far corners of
the globe for "Ann Curry Reports: Our Year of Extremes - Did Climate
Change Just Hit Home?"
The special, which takes
a look at the Arctic, drought-stricken regions in the American West,
rising seas on Florida’s coastline, and extreme weather events all over
the world, comes days after a panel of some of the world's top
scientists delivered the sobering news that climate change is already
being felt in every continent and across the oceans.
"It is a call for action," Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which issued the groundbreaking climate report Monday, told the Associated Press.
Those who have witnessed the Arctic's transformation loudly echo that call.
Aqqaluk
Lynge, a leader of the Inuit — the indigenous people of the Arctic
regions — told Curry that not long ago, the water behind him was once
solid ice and served as a road for Inuit hunters' dogsleds during
hunting season. But in the past 20 years, the sea ice has become
unpredictable.
"Two years ago here, a young couple died falling through the ice," Lynge said.
"We don't have time to argue. It's here. It's happening and we need to do something."
Now
when the Inuit hunt for traditional food for their families, such as
walruses and seals, they sometimes have to use their dogs to haul
motorboats into the water instead of sledding across ice.
Box,
who has been studying Arctic ice for 20 years, accompanied Curry to
Iceberg Alley in Greenland. He says the glacier has been discharging ice
into the sea for thousands of years, but in the last 10 years, the rate
has has doubled.
"Greenland each year recently is losing about 300 billion tons [of ice]," Box said.
The
rapid pace of change isn't just in the Arctic: Scientists have observed
record ice melt all over the globe, from Alaska to Peru, from the
Himalayas to the Swiss Alps.
Though
scientists generally do not link specific weather events to climate
change, they also say as the earth warms, we will have to get used to
living with more extreme weather.
In California, an
unrelenting drought has gripped the state — threatening communities and
the states farming industry. And since California supplies about half
the nation's fruit and vegetables, that could mean food prices will
rise.
But drought poses additional threats.
In
other places in North America, where communities have developed in
wildfire danger zones, millions of people are potentially at risk from
longer wildfire seasons.
Amazingly,
some scientists say the effect of those longer fire seasons can be
witnessed as far as the Arctic. During her journey there, Curry noticed
large dark swaths covering parts of the normally white ice.
"Most
likely it's dust, but also in that is some wildfire soot," Box said,
explaining that some of the soot had traveled from North American
wildfires and coated the ice with carbon particles. The problems can
multiply from there.
"Light-absorbing
impurities trap more sunlight, and that can hasten the melting process,"
Box said. "It's a good example of human activity and climate change
combining in complex ways that further promote melting."
Box is still conducting research, investigating the effect of what he calls "dark snow" on the rate of ice melt.
That the ice is melting is not in doubt. But the impact of ice melt is the subject of an ongoing debate.
Jennifer
Francis, a research professor with the Institute of Marine and Coastal
Sciences at Rutgers University in New Jersey, has a bold and
controversial theory that Arctic ice melt is changing the polar jet
stream in the northern hemisphere.
"As
the Arctic is warming faster, it's causing these waves in the jet
stream to get larger," she said. As the waves get larger, the jet stream
moves more slowly, she says, and that has the effect of holding weather
- good or bad - in place.
If we
want to stop the impact of climate change, there's no time to waste,
experts say. In 2013, U.S. carbon dioxide emissions went up for the
first time in years, although they're down 10 percent since 2005.
"We
don't have time to argue. It's here. It's happening and we need to do
something, and there's an urgency about it," said Keren Bolter, a
research scientist at Florida Atlantic University's Center for
Environmental Studies.
Roger Pielke, Jr., a
professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado,
believes human activity impacts global warming, but does not link recent
extreme weather to climate change. And he too believes that urgent
action is needed. He argues the introduction of something like a
multibillion-dollar government initiative, possibly a carbon tax, may be
necessary to fund energy innovation.
"Changing your light bulb is not going to make a big difference. We need to go after the big sources of energy," he said.
According
to scientists, a huge volume of greenhouse gases is trapped under
permafrost — frozen soil that spans large areas of the Northern
hemisphere, at a thickness of up to one mile in places — and that
permafrost is showing signs of thawing. If the trapped greenhouse gases
escape, Box says there could be severe consequences — something he calls
the "doomsday scenario."
"That's
climate catastrophe. Runaway climate heating," he said. "That would
ravage agricultural systems. We cant feed people, mass starvation,
famine, breakdown of civilization."
In
the meantime, in the Arctic, some Inuit families are abandoning the
melting ice that no longer provides for them. But they have an urgent
message for the rest of the world.
"Protect it, take good care of it," said Inuit leader Lynge.
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