Radical Environmental Change in the Polar Regions

• Main Author: Snape, William
• Format: Text
• Language: unknown
• Published: Digital Commons @ American University Washington College of Law 2008
• Subjects: Antarctic Peninsula; Arctic; warmed; ice; Environmental Law; Law; Antarctic; The Antarctic; Antarc*; Ice Sheet
• Online Access: https://digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu/facsch_lawrev/1784; https://works.bepress.com/william-snape/4/download/

One need only to look at a comparison of summer Arctic ice extent from 1979 to 2007 to understand something significant is happening. In the span of a generation, the millennia-old Arctic has shrunk by roughly two-thirds and could easily be ice free in the summer within a decade. Or if that is not enough, consider that in the winter of 2008, a massive chunk of ice broke off from the Antarctic Peninsula, and another ice sheet the size of Northern Ireland (or Connecticut, if you prefer) hangs on by a thread. Over the past fifty years, the Arctic and Antarctic have warmed by around 3 degrees Celsius, roughly double the rest of the world. The goal, simply put, is to prevent this harbinger.