Current Event #2, Doukas

         “Still Stuck in a Climate Argument”

                             Sophie Doukas

Fountain, Henry. "Still Stuck in a Climate Argument." The New York Times. The New

York Times, 6 Jan. 2014. Web. 9 Jan. 2014. <http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/07/science/earth/still-stuck-in-a-climate-argument.html?ref=science>.

            In late December of this year, a ship touring the Antarctic Ocean found itself stuck in glacial ice. Ironically, the tour’s purpose was to unveil the effects that global warming has had on the icier areas of the Earth, so being trapped in ice for a week was not expected. The ship being trapped didn’t necessarily have much to do with global warming, instead it was caused winds caused pieces of ice to surround the ship. More importantly, this event sparked the debate of climate change. This argument has gone on for decades now between those who doubt the theory of climate change and the scientists who support it.  The sea cover and glaciers in the Antarctic are undeniably changing, but no scientist seems to know for sure how or why. Climatologists such as Sharon E. Stammerjohn, a scientist at the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, struggle to decide whether these changes are influenced by climate change or climate invariability (unpredictability in the natural world) because one is just as reasonable of an explanation as the other.

Climate change skeptics have good reasons to remain unconvinced. For example, upon studying the sea ice of the Arctic and Antarctic, a discovery was made. This was that unlike the Arctic Ocean, which has experiences a rapid decline of ice, areas of the Antarctic coast such as the Ross Sea have experienced an increase in ice. Although the increase is only one percent a decade, it is a legitimate argument against climate change. In addition to the climate changing the amount of sea ice, it is also believed to have also impacted the sea ice itself. The warm air from the north pushes the ice against the coast and melts it while the south’s cold air moves the ice away and creates more. The skeptics don’t believe that the winds, representing climate change, are the answer but instead other factors of nature.

Climate change is an issue that should not be taken lightly. In fact, further investigation is crucial. Scientists have studied the decrease of ice around the globe in great detail, connecting it to global warming due to an abundance of greenhouse gases and the weakening of the atmospheric ozone. But that should be just the beginning of the study of climate change. We need to focus more on the Antarctic sea ice to increase our knowledge of why these changes are happening. “Antarctic sea ice… has been studied far less than Arctic Ice… the regions are opposite” (Dr. Ted Maksym,Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution). Dr. Maksym elaborated, explaining that learning about one in depth doesn’t necessarily mean you can apply this knowledge to the other. The Antarctic sea ice is providing scientists with an opportunity find out what’s going on, an opportunity that could ultimately offer an answer to a long-controversial question.

I thought the article was sufficient at providing information about the climate argument, but I think that it could have been organized better. There should have been sections with titles so the evidence would be grouped by main ideas. I also think more information and facts could have been added about the argument itself. I think that Henry Fountain wrote an article about a very interesting topic I didn’t know much about before.