• Question: Are the melting polar ice caps an indication of some climatic change completely beyond our control?

    Asked by ledw to Christina, Jess on 28 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: Christina Pagel

      Christina Pagel answered on 28 Jun 2013:

      The ice caps are melting because it’s getting warmer- and it’s getting warmer (at least partly) because there is more carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere which trap heat. Much of the extra carbon dioxide and methane is due to humans, from burning fossil fuels, breeding lots of cattle, cutting down forests etc… so, by reducing how much of these gases we release into the atmosphere we can have some impact on the melting ice caps…

      BUT, at some point you reach a tipping point – where the more ice you melt the warmer the earth gets (because less heat is reflected back into space by the white surfaces), the more ice you melt the more you might swithc off really important currents in the sea like the gulf stream (which keep england much warmer than it shoudl be given how far nonrth we are!)… and then, we might reacha point where we can’t affect climate change any more…

      That’s why climate scientists are so worried – they think we might reach that tipping point in the next 20-30 years…

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