5/23/12

The Arctic is Melting!

Did you know that the Arctic is the fastest warming region on the planet? And it's going to get worse. Scientists have recently discovered around one hundred fifty thousand sites where methane gas has been trapped in the ice. This gas that has been trapped for millenniums along with some younger gas is presumably from natural gas or coal deposits beneath the lakes. Methane gas is not easy to identify but a team from the University of Alaska at Fairbanks was able to take many samples in the air and in the ice. Now that the Arctic is melting, the gas is being released into the atmosphere. If this continues it will have a big impact on our planet’s health. In the last hundred years there has been a large increase in greenhouse gas release, which warms our atmosphere, which melts the ice, containing even more gasses! Methane doesn’t last as long and other greenhouse gasses, like carbon dioxide, but it is much more potent.

We need a fix eventually. We don’t know how serious this issue is right now but I’m hoping we find a fix. We don’t want to accelerate global warming or increase the chances of a planetary emergency.

Melting:
tech to fix it:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17400804
Sourcefed's Take:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFrjt260ZPI&list=UU_gE-kg7JvuwCNlbZ1-shlA&index=6&feature=plcp

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