(Bryce) The vast, deep oceans absorb nearly 90% of the heat that is trapped by greenhouse gases,
and warming temperatures are causing the sea and land ice to melt faster than it otherwise would--a
point made by Dr. Jennifer Francis in this second
part from my full conversation with her. (Dr. Francis) There's two things going on
there with the oceans: one is they absorb some of the carbon dioxide into the water
itself contributing to ocean acidification, so the oceans are becoming more acidic over time;
but then the other factor is that the oceans absorb almost 90% of the heat that's trapped
by greenhouse gases. Those red and yellow colors showing how much warmer the oceans are
than they should be compared to a reference period of about a 30-year time period. And the warmest
ocean areas are off of the west coast of North America, all around Alaska, all around Greenland,
and all along the coast of the arctic as well. We're seeing the impacts of these very warm ocean
temperatures especially around Alaska. They've had a record-breaking warm all month since the winter,
if they haven't been record every single month they've been very close. The sea ice in that
part of the arctic has been at record low levels all winter long, all spring long, all
summer long--especially in the Bering Sea area, which is that region right around Alaska there.
In terms of the volume of sea ice, we've lost about three quarters of it.
So volume of course includes the area of the ice times the thickness of the ice.
In the upper right corner of this image here you can see most of the arctic ocean filled with ice
during September, which is when we typically see the ice reach its smallest area after having gone
through a whole summer of melting. And in the bottom graph there is showing what it looked
like in 2012 September 2012, which is when we've had the least amount of sea ice ever recorded--and
it's approximately half of what it was back in the late 1970s and early 80s. And again, that's just a
huge difference in a very short time. And that red and orange color area there is showing you where
the ice used to be and instead now is open water. And of course the ice is very reflective, most of
the sunshine that hits it gets reflected right back to outer space, and so that energy never
gets into the climate system. But now we've lost so much ice that instead of having that bright
white surface there, now all that extra sun's energy goes into the water, warms up that water,
and then helps contribute to more melting of the sea ice. And this is one of the reasons why the
arctic is warming so much faster than elsewhere is because of this extra energy from the sun that
now is getting absorbed into the ocean when before it was reflected right back to space.
Now ships can get up in there and not worry about running into ice so much, so there is
this opportunity to go up there and drill for oil and excavate other mineral resources,
and you know there's a lot of countries that are looking up looking north and seeing opportunity.
(Reporter) "The big land mass on the left is Little Diomede Island,
it's U.S. territory. On the right, a little bit further away, is Big Diomede Island,
that's Russian territory. So this is really the front line in what is
an increasing competition for the arctic." (Dr. Francis) When land ice melts it flows
directly into the ocean, adds mass to the ocean, and contributes to sea level rise.
When sea ice melts, which is the ice that's already floating on the ocean, that does
not affect sea level rise because it's already floating and already displacing ocean water. So
that melting land ice - and that includes glaciers as well - is one of the biggest contributors to
sea level rise, and we're seeing it increasing. (Bryce) Is there around seven, eight meters of
potential sea level rise on Greenland alone? (Dr. Francis) Yep, that's about right, 20 feet,
7 meters, yep. That'll happen relatively slowly, but we probably won't see that whole
Greenland ice sheet melt in our lifetimes, but we're on the right track for that to happen
ultimately. And that is just really bad news. And never mind Antarctica which holds even more ice,
which is the ice sitting on top of the Antarctic continent in the southern hemisphere. And we're
also seeing very clear signs of it melting as well, but mostly from the underneath, where warmer
ocean waters are coming into contact with the glaciers that come off of the Antarctic ice sheet.
(Bryce) The melting happening underneath the ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland is key.
Hidden from plain sight it can cause changes that seem sudden and random,
but that can actually be predicted if studied in the right way. This is the focus of University of
Copenhagen professor Jorgen Peder Steffensen. (Dr. Steffensen) "So right now I think the
contribution of Greenland ice sheet to world sea level change is just beginning to show,
but we don't know if this shrinking is going to be a linear, straightforward process that you can
predict. You can monitor the surface, trouble is all kinds of funny stuff is going on at the
base of the ice sheet. If something odd is going on at the base in these ice streams - and there
are a lot of ice streams in west Antarctica too - then it can upset the entire apple cart. All
of a sudden you would have an unstable ice sheet that might break away not over several centuries,
but over a couple of decades, and that would be disastrous.
(Bryce) Watch this entire Climate Change Solutions episode by joining my new premium website,
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Thanks for watching. Until next time, I'm Bryce Plank.