Arctic News
A new ocean?

According to the New York Times, accelerated melting of Arctic ice recently prompted the Navy to study how to adapt to the possibility of having a new ocean to patrol. The Navy report said it may have to develop new ships to patrol this body of water.

A study published in the Journal of Climate in late October said temperatures in the Arctic have been increasing at a rate much faster than the rest of the world, causing the amount of ice in the region to reach record lows last year.

Temperatures in the Arctic have increased at a rate of 2.2 degrees Fahrenheit each decade since 1981, a rate of increase of almost eight times greater than during the previous century. By comparison, worldwide temperatures have increased by an average of 1 degree over the last century (Greenwire, Oct. 24, 2003).

Experts said a poor grasp of Arctic climate dynamics hinders their ability to pinpoint the cause of the warming, although human emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide are believed to be causing at least a portion of the temperature changes. Mark Serreze, a researcher at the University of Colorado, said attributing the cause of the warming is "going to remain a probabilistic thing ... you can never definitively say, 'yes'" (Revkin, Jan. 13). -- AF