Preface

• Published in: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series A: Physical and Engineering Sciences
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: The Royal Society 1995
• Subjects: Arctic; Southern Ocean; albedo; Global warming; Sea ice
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsta.1995.0063; https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsta.1995.0063

On 12-13 October 1994 the Royal Society held a Discussion Meeting on the Arctic and Environmental Change. The fourteen papers, each of which is published here, gave a broad insight into the transformation of the Arctic which we can expect during the next century on account of anthropogenic warming. The special importance of the Arctic to the global warming problem is made clear in the first paper by Cattle & Crossley, which shows the results of the latest general circulation model (GCM) produced by the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research. Within 70 years, the Arctic is predicted to warm by at least 4 °C on an annual average, and in places by more than 8 °C, as compared to values of 0-4 °C elsewhere in the world and even a slight cooling in parts of the Southern Ocean. The warming will be greater in the winter, and this large Arctic enhancement of global warming persists even when the moderating effect of sulphate aerosols is taken into account. One mechanism contributing to this enhancement is ice-albedo feedback, whereby the retreat of seasonal snow on land, and sea ice in the ocean, reduces average albedo and so generates a positive feedback loop.