In July of 2013, NASA published an article about the impacts of significant warming in the arctic.  The article is interesting because it offers a first-hand account from an agency that is collecting data on Climate Change and observing the changes in Arctic temperatures.  The thesis seems to be that, on the whole, the Arctic functions as an early-warning system for climate change and will experience the most drastic changes.

There are several important points that are made in the article that are relevant to the current Modules on Climate Change.  First, the nearing reality of ice-free summers have two primary and relevant implications.  First, less light would be reflected at the sun (as discussed in my last post and in Module 3).  The NASA scientists point out that the oceans will instead have to absorb this energy, thus significantly warming the planet.

Secondly, and very interestingly, are the changes to ecosystems that would accompany an ice-less summer.  An example of these changes would be an increase in the phytoplankton population.  The Director of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Ocean and Climate Change Institute, which is located on Cape Cod, described the other changes that have already begun to accompany changing ocean temperatures.

This particular citation draws my attention, as I have grown up spending every summer on Cape Cod and have continued to love it, but grown to understand and explore it.  The increase in warm-water species and decline in cold water species is often mentioned, particularly by conservation groups on the Cape.

A final connection that I made through the NASA Article on arctic melting was a link to the Agency’s Climate Change data time machines.  These interactive pages were very interesting, and easily portrayed temperature, sea level, CO2 level, and Ice sheet data over the course of recorded history.

Arctic Melting NASA Article:http://climate.nasa.gov/news/958/

Climate Time Machine Data: http://climate.nasa.gov/interactives/climate-time-machine