남극 붕괴의 위기 – 지구 온난화 NBC -

 

A 25 mile long ribbon of ice has broken at the bottom of world. And there’s a disturbing new warning about what’s to come. Obama administration is calling for greater protection of the earth’s Polar Regions, including limits on tourism. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton made the proposals at a global summit in Washington. Coincidentally, it comes two days after a crucial ice bridge collapsed at the South Pole, effectively changing the map of that part of the world. The story from our chief environmental affairs correspondent Anne Thompson.

 

From polar bears in the north to penguins in the south, thinning ice at the poles means more climate trouble for the planet. In the artic ocean, a government report out today shows ice cover this winter was the fifth smallest on record, and the ice that’s there was the thinnest ever. Ice accumulated over the years, the thick stuff marked in red on this map, makes up a record low 10% of the ice cover. The orange area is the first-year ice. Thin ice, the vast majority of this winter’s ice cover, and most susceptible to summer melting. “It’s not a matter of if we’re gonna have an ice free ocean in the artic during the summer time, but when.”

 

Artic ice acts as a reflector for the earth bouncing back heat and energy from the sun into space. Without the ice, the ocean absorbs the heat raising temperatures that could speed the melt of land ice in Green Land and raise see levels. At the bottom of the world, the ice bridge at Antarctica’s Wilkins Ice Shelf collapsed over the weekend. Scientists fear the Wilkins stable for much of the past century could now break free.

 

Today in international meeting on polar issues, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton said more must be done to protect these areas. “With the collapse of an ice bridge that holds in place the Wilkins Ice Shelf, we are reminded that global warming has already had enormous affects on our planet, and we have no time to lose in tackling this crisis.”

 

It’s a crisis that may seem far away, but the poles are like thermostats for the planet. And changes there could affect the weather everywhere people live. “The science is telling us that we are actually in a much worse situation than we would think we would otherwise be.” A situation made worse by manmade global warming that now needs a manmade solution. Anne Thompson, NBC News, New York.

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