Arctic Ice Research Paper

It is no secret that the number one danger facing todays generation is climate change. There are constant sea levels rising, global average temperatures rising, acid content in rain is increasing, and the quality of the air we breathe is decreasing. With the increasing temperatures, it is starting to melt the majority of the ice caps on both poles. The arctic poles are decreasing at an alarming rate of 12% a decade. At this rate, we will no longer have any arctic poles by the end of the century. If this were to occur, global sea levels would rise by 230 feet. This would eat away at all the worlds coasts wiping away thousands of families homes. In general, sea ice is moderated by the sunlight. Like most ice it melts in the summer and refreezes during the winter. Most of the time during the winter it will grow to larger ice sheets. But in recent years this is not the case. Warm ocean currents move north from the equator causing warmer waters to travel to the arctic ice regions This makes it harder during the winter for ice sheets to freeze and form together. This has an adverse affect on the Earth itself. One of the primary functions of …show more content…
Why should we be concerned? There are many affects of melting sea ice that affects the majority of the Earth. One of the main impacts is what I stated before, the sea ice tends to reflect the sunlight. This causes a regulated temperature throughout the Earth. With the arctic ice sheets melting, less and less radiation is being reflected causing an increase in global temperature. There is also an affect of rising sea levels. One indirect affect of arctic sea is the melting of Greenland’s ice sheets. If all the arctic sea ice were to met it would of course increase global temperature. If these were to increase it would put all of Greenland’s ice sheets at risk of melting. If all of Greenland’s ice sheets were to melt it would cause global sea levels to raise about 20