Melting ice: As the International Polar Year draws to a close, researchers have found less ice and rising seas.
FLICKR/CHRISTIAN REVIVAL NETWORK

UNITED NATIONS — Two years of intense polar research have shown declining snow and ice pack and rising seas, but they have also yielded abundant new data that might help scientists understand the overall effects of climate change and what to do about it, the U.N. World Meteorological Organization said today.

Summarizing results of those studies as the International Polar Year—a two-year, $1.2 billion initiative—draws to a close, officials say scientists know considerably more now about how Arctic and Antarctic changes are affecting weather patterns and the migration of pollutants.

The International Polar Year effort, spearheaded by WMO and the International Council for Science, is credited with vastly expanding our understanding of the extremes of Earth.

"The new evidence resulting from polar research will strengthen the scientific basis on which we build future actions," said WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud at the launch of the State of Polar Research report in Geneva.

Among other findings, researchers say they now have conclusive proof that the ice mass found on Antarctica and Greenland is diminishing, contributing to a worldwide rise in sea levels. The Arctic ice cap also shrunk to its smallest size over the summers of 2007 and 2008 since satellite record-keeping began.

Scientists also say that Arctic permafrost is melting, a worrying sign for officials committed to combating climate change. Results of polar research released just last week show that the average temperature of permafrost found in northern Russia has increased by 1 to 2 degrees Celsius over the past 35 years. The findings match an earlier study of Alaskan permafrost that discovered a temperature rise of about 0.5 to 2 degrees Celsius.

The vast swath of permafrost covering the Arctic Circle is known to hold massive quantities of organic material trapped beneath the permanently frozen ground. Scientists suspect that thawing permafrost will lead to much of this material decaying, releasing an enormous amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and exacerbating the greenhouse effect.

Officials say the two-year polar research and awareness effort has helped to improve scientific understanding of global weather patterns, as well.

Researchers have learned that the Arctic and Antarctic get much of their heat and moisture from storms originating in the North Atlantic. Tracking where and how this heat pump operates should help meteorologists and climatologists improve their weather forecasts.

Perhaps the biggest finding to come out of the International Polar Year, or IPY, initiative is the discovery that changes to Earth's climate and environment are happening much more rapidly than scientists working on the groundbreaking studies of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change initially suspected, officials say.