New NASA Satellite Survey Reveals Dramatic Arctic Sea Ice Thinning
Vancouver Sun: Regions of Arctic tundra around the world are heating up very rapidly, releasing more greenhouse gases than predicted and boosting the process of global warming... Professor Greg Henry of the University of British Columbia also said higher temperatures meant larger plants were starting to spread across the tundra, which is usually covered by small shrubs, grasses and lichen. The thicker plant cover means the region is getting darker and absorbing more heat. He said tundra covers about 15 per cent of the world's surface and makes up about 30 per cent of Canadian territory.
Henry, who has been working in the Arctic since the early 1980s, said he had measured 'a very substantial change' in the tundra over the last three decades... Since 1970, he said, temperatures in the tundra region had risen by 1 degree Celsius per decade -- equal to the highest rates of warming found anywhere on the planet. 'We're finding that the tundra is actually giving off a log more nitrous oxide and methane than anyone had thought before... We're really trying to get a handle on this because (if further tests show) that's true, this actually changes the entire greenhouse gas budget for the North, and that has global implications.'
Image: NASA
