Green Options » ice caps

Major Studies Reveal State of the Poles

Michael Ricciardi — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 12:00:18 +0000

This month, as the results of data analyses come in, climate scientists are getting a more detailed, far clearer picture of the ‘State of the Poles’ and the effects of warming and climate change in these most extreme regions of our planet. Although this project is actually the culmination of two years work (encompassing 160 separate studies and costing 1.2 billion dollars) it has been officially deemed the ‘International Polar Year’ (IPY).

One of the most important findings of this project is a confirmation of what many climate scientists have suspected for a couple of years now–that the impact of climate change on our environment is happening at a much faster rate than previous computer models predicted. This is true even for the four major reports released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (the last of which was released in 2007).

Could Melting Ice Caps Reduce Global Warming?

Ariel Schwartz — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 19:15:24 +0000

New Scientist reports a controversial study that melting ice caps could actually weaken the greenhouse effect. Stanford University scientists studied satellite data from 1998 to 2007 to evaluate changes in sea surface temperatures and quantities of sea ice and phytoplankton (increased phytoplankton activity removes atmospheric carbon). What they found is startling— phytoplankton grew more in areas where ice was disappearing.

ZapRoot: Wind-Powered Monsters, and Useless Crap

Jeff McIntire-Strasburg — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 20:22:52 +0000

This post contains additional media. Click here to view the full post.

This week at ZapRoot: The Strandbeest behemoth (which we featured here on CleanTechnica) is unlike anything you’ve seen before. Ice in both poles is melting. Totally Useless Crap is back!

Baffin Island Ice Caps: See Them While You Can

Shirley Siluk Gregory — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 17:11:50 +0000

Researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder report that the northern plateau ice caps of Baffin Island have shrunk by more than half in the past 50 years. At that rate, they say, the ice caps will be gone by mid-century.

Photo courtesy of Ansgar Walk, via Wikimedia Commons

Weekend Web Review: Canary Project Visualizes a Warming Earth

Shirley Siluk Gregory — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 15:01:51 +0000

The Canary Project is banking not only on the old saying, "A picture is worth a thousand words," but that the right picture — or pictures — can resonate and inspire viewers to take action against global warming.

Founded in 2006, The New York-based Canary Project initially set out to build public awareness of climate change by photographing landscapes around the world that are already feeling the impact. It has since expanded its mission "to support a wide variety of other artists working at the intersection of art and ecology." But it’s still the photos, all featured on The Canary Project Website, that pack the most punch.

"Art has the capacity to penetrate received notions, generate media attention and create lasting visceral impact — all of which can be a more effective catalyst to action than mere rational apprehension," wrote co-founders Edward Morris and Susannah Sayler on their Website.
The Canary Project offers up photos illustrating several aspects of climate change: disrupted ecosystems (the Barrier Reef of Belize and the cloud forests of Costa Rica); droughts and fires (the American West); extreme weather events (New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina); glacial, ice cap and permafrost melting (Alaska and Austria); and rising sea levels (Venice, Italy).

It also features some images of encouragement: the massively built Maeslantkering storm surge barrier in the Netherlands and a windmill farm in Palm Springs, California.
Some of the images, like the picture of patterns on the surface of the melting Pasterze Glacier in Austria, are fascinating (who would have thought a flowing river of ice, close up, would resemble an elephant’s gray and wrinkled hide?). Some, such as the photograph of a Venetian crypt, its door opening directly onto a wide stretch of water, evoke the works of surrealist painters.

Others — like the bleak photo of a stripped-bare building slab and a stretch of leafless trees in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana — are chilling.
And more photos are to come. Sayler has so far taken images of 11 of 14 landscapes where the early signs of global warming are making themselves visible. Once she has visited all the locations, she plans to assemble the photographs into a book and traveling exhibition. She also intends to continue taking photos of two to three different regions around the world starting next year.

Some of Sayler’s images have already been on display at various locations, including the Sheehan Gallery at Washington’s Whitman College and The Spring’s Preserve Desert Living Center in Las Vegas. In November, the project has planned an exhibition, video installation and presentation at Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry, as well as a presentation at the Chicago Humanities Festival.

With more locations yet to be photographed — the Gobi Desert, Siberia, Greenland, Tuvalu, Bangladesh and others — The Canary Project promises to deliver even more climate-oriented inspiration in the months and years to come.