The Arctic's importance has gained extra strategic and economic significance as melting ice in the polar region strengthens the feasibility of nations to use the Northern Sea Route (NSR) across the top of Russia and the Northwest Passage through Canada's Arctic archipelago.
Are you terrified by the melting polar ice cap, rising sea levels, extreme weather, and other growing threats from global warming?
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"The grim news about polar bears and sea ice decline is horrifying, but it is a call to action, not despair, " said Kassie Siegel of the Center for Biological Diversity.
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Jack Hall (Dennis Quaid) is a climatologist who realizes, as a slice of the polar ice cap slides into the sea, that the end of the world (or, at any rate, of that half of the world that drives S.U.V.s) is nigh.
I'll tell you floods, tornadoes, fire etc all those bad things as well as the sea rising and all the polar bears etc and the rainforest getting destroyed so basically global warming is the end of the world and the end of the world will happen one day even if you recycle one million bottles.
Yet while most people have read of the threat of rising sea levels and melting polar caps, or experienced a nagging guilt when booking a cheap flight or buying exotic fruit imported from the other side of the planet, hitherto global warming has largely been something we are happy to leave to the scientists to worry about.
"Polar sea ice has an important function in moderating the global energy balance, " he said.
"Even though they seem far away, changes in the polar regions could have an impact on both hemispheres, with sea level rise and changes in climate patterns, " he said.
Kearns and a team of scientists led by Alan Strong of NOAA's National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service analyzed sea surface temperature data from the agency's polar-orbiting satellites from 1984 through 1996.
Before the Industrial Revolution, carbon dioxide levels were around 280 ppm, and they were closer to 200 during the Ice Age, which is when sea levels shrank and polar places went from green to icy.
In a project within the International Polar Year called Igliniit, Inuit hunters recorded their observations of wildlife, sea ice, weather or other environmental phenomena as they travelled across the land.
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