THE ARCTIC AND CLIMATE CHANGE

ARCTIC REGION

• The Arctic is all of the Earth north of the Arctic Circle, which is located at 66 degrees, 32 minutes North Latitude and is a vast, ice-covered ocean
  
  
• The Arctic Ocean is surrounded by Alaska, Canada, Greenland, and Russia
  
  
• Climate change is affecting the Arctic more than anywhere else in the world
  
  
• The North Pole is in the middle of this 4000m deep Arctic Ocean
  
  
• The Arctic region is currently warming at twice the global rate and experts predict it may disappear by 2070
  
  
• Across the entire Arctic, glaciers and ice caps have lost 400 cubic kilometres of volume over the past forty years
  
  
• Between Dec’ 04 – Dec ‘05 14% of the Arctic Ocean’s “perennial” sea ice vanished.  This is an area the size of Texas!
  
  
• In Alaska, snowmelt now occurs ten days earlier on average than in the 1950’s
  
  
• More than 10,000 lakes have shrunk or disappeared altogether in the last half-century
  
  
• Numerous human settlements across the globe will be washed away if we fail to rectify the melting of the Arctic ice flow
  
  
• The Arctic can no longer act as a giant solar mirror, the planet absorbs even more energy from the sun, raising temperatures more rapidly across the rest of the globe
  
  
• Without ice cover over the Arctic Ocean, we have to expect big changes in the Earth’s weather and will see extreme levels of warmth unlike anything experienced by northern polar regions for several millions of years.

The Ice Cap Station Arctic Challenge ‘09 will endeavour to conduct a detailed review of measures to reduce the environmental footprint of the expedition itself.  Although it will not be possible to eliminate CO2- emissions to zero, the expedition will strive to be as carbon neutral as possible.  We will calculate and report our overall carbon emissions and off-set them through an equivalent donation to Climate Care.