StormCenter has been selected to lead the communications effort for a new NSF funded project that addresses how Climate Change is affecting Greenland ice. On July 27, 2009, climate expert and media correspondant Dr. Heidi Cullen joined the StormCenter team to create media magic, as if you were standing on the ice sheets yourself. She interviewed key scientists that are working to uncover climate mysteries surrounding the melting and thinning ice so precious to Greenland. Dr. Jim White, Director of the University of Colorado’s Institute for Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR) is the principal investigator. Dr. White is a leading scientist who studies Paleoclimate signals that give the world a better understanding of what the climate was like thousands and millions of years ago by extracting gasses that have been trapped in deep ice recovered from the Greenland summit.Dr. White’s ice cores are part of the North Eemian (NEEM) Deep Ice Core Project and may reveal some of the keys to climate change. The Eemian period refers to an interglacial period that occurred more than 100,000 years ago. This period is important because scientists previously thought it was a very stable interglacial period that lasted about 1,000 years with little temperature variation. As a result of ice core research in 1993, scientists discovered that temperatures varied greatly during this period. If this happened back then, it can happen again. Dr. White recently said in a NOVA special called “Extreme Ice” that, “Our relationship with ice is one that has very dramatically, if not violently, shifted from one of, ah, "Don't worry about it," to one of, "Boy, you know, this is one of the most important controllers of the future environment of the planet."The ice sheet on Greenland is experiencing change. Glaciers on its edges are sliding into the Atlantic at an accelerating rate and pools of water puddle on the surface of the ice as the summer melt lengthens then drive deep holes through which the water reaches the bottom of the ice layer. Piece by piece, evidence has accumulated to show that the ice sheet is shrinking and the sea levels are rising. A recent Reuters article (March 10, 2009) stated that, "The ice loss in Greenland shows an acceleration during the last decade," said veteran Greenland researcher Konrad Steffen, director of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado, Boulder. "The upper range of sea-level rise by 2100 might be above one meter or more on a global average, with large regional differences depending where the source of ice loss occurs," he said.One of the major concerns of rising sea levels is that people and property along coastlines will find themselves even more at risk than they are today because storms that affect the coastlines will push more water inland causing larger floods, more extensive erosion and damaging more property.If Greenland were to lose all of its ice, the seas would rise about 21.5 feet! StormCenter has been engaged by Dr. Jim White, Director of the Institute for Alpine and Arctic Research to tell the story of why it is so important to study Greenland ice. Look for Greenland updates from 2009 to 2012 as we track discoveries and report on local and global impacts!StormCenter will produce stories and distribute video for this amazing journey to news media and through the Internet to hand-held devices, websites and of course through StormCenter’s Studio Earth and Arctic-Channel.

Communicating Climate Change from Greenland

Enter texDr. Jim White, INSTAAR

Enter text...Dr. Heidi Cullen

Enter text...PDF of NEEM's 2009 Drilling Blog

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