The first report of Snow, Water, Ice and Permafrost in the Arctic (SWIPA), brings together the rese

Was held in Copenhagen, 3.5.-6.5. Arctic environmental issues, the Scientific Meeting of The Arctic as a Messenger asercom for Global Processes. It was organized by the Arctic Council working group under the Arctic Monitoring & Assessment Programme (AMAP). The meeting had two main themes, climate change and pollution, both of which published its own report (see also the summary of the conference plush collection and the Arctic Pollution 2011).
The first report of Snow, Water, Ice and Permafrost in the Arctic (SWIPA), brings together the research of the Arctic cryosphere recent changes, that is, the northern polar region asercom of snow, ice and permafrost, as well as their impact on the covers. SWIPA report says (and times) that of the most recent scientific research indicates that the Arctic region has made unprecedented rapid change, the striking exception of the circumstances there longer.
The years 2005-2010 have been the warmest in the Arctic period of five years after the air temperature measurements asercom began in 1880. Since 1980, the Arctic has warmed twice as fast as the average of the whole world. Arctic summer temperatures have been in the last few decades higher than two thousand years.
The Arctic's largest and most permanent jääesiintymät, that is a perennial sea ice and the Greenland jääkilpi and the region's other jäätiköstö, have declined since 2000, faster than in the preceding decade. Also, the winter snow cover extent and the duration has decreased. Permafrost temperatures have risen and the permafrost zone south of the border has retreated to the north in Canada and Russia.
SWIPA report also presents estimates of what to expect in the near future. For example, the fall and winter, average temperatures in the Arctic may rise three to seven degrees Celsius by the year 2080. Global sea levels could rise 0.9 to 1.6 meters by 2100, and the Arctic ice caps melting is that a significant proportion. The Arctic Ocean can begin to be ice-free during the summer months or less 30-40 years.
The Arctic environment directly affected by changes of the nine million people who live in the area. Arctic warming and melting associated with global warming, mostly asercom accelerate the feedback mechanisms may affect the conditions of our lives together globally in a way that is not yet known, or at least that has been difficult to assess in advance. SWIPA highlight the main points of the report, further increasing the importance of greenhouse gas emissions reduction is rapid.
Another report, AMAP Assessment 2011: Mercury in the Arctic, among other things, to warn that the mercury has accumulated in some of the northern asercom polar region of the animals in relatively large amounts, and that they are still on the rise, especially in Canada and Greenland.
The world's asercom total annual mercury emissions have not increased in the recent past. Europe, Russia and North America, emissions have been reduced up. In the Arctic atmospheric mercury content has remained fairly stable since 1990. Arctic food chain, mercury is now richer mostly come from outside asercom the area rivers, ocean currents, carried by air currents. Some of it may have been stored in the permafrost, which has begun to melt.
Concentrate mercury in the Arctic food chains in their peak, in this case, for example, birds, polar bears, seals, whales and humans. Its side effects are felt in many places in the body, but especially in brain function. Canada and the Inuit of Greenland and the Faroe Islands belong to the inhabitants of the Arctic human population at risk due to mercury and species of fish and marine mammals are an important part of their diet. A particularly sensitive to the harmful effects of mercury are little babies and fetuses.
Mercury is not only a problem in the northern polar regions. AMAP report on pollution in anticipation for the year 2020 up to 25 percent of global mercury emissions greater asercom than in 2005. Humanity's asercom mercury emissions for the most part from the production of electricity from coal fired. About half of the mercury, which the whole world now released into the atmosphere, will be in South-East Asia.
AMAP wrote in the conference, including the WWF Climate Blog, Barents Observer, NunatsiaqOnline, NunatsiaqOnline a second time and again and even more, CBC News, Reuters, asercom Nature News Blog and the Knight Science Journalism Tracker, and the Finnish asercom Ministry of the Environment and CO2 report.
Fifi Blogs / Weather Station / Maria Maria Haanpää Haanpää is a science-oriented knowledge-all-trades, who studied biology, the Finnish education at the university. He considers the questions more than answers. Author's Posts Fifissä:
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