Apr 4, 2012; 3:36 PM ET
Climate change is changing the face of the Arctic and Antarctic faster than expected, according to a report just released by the U.S. National Research Council.
The report took into account a synthesis of reports from thousands of scientists from 60 countries. The report is the first in over 50 years to offer a benchmark of conditions from the International Polar year (2007-2008).
Worldwide, many oceanographers, meteorologists, geologists, climate scientists, ecologists and other researchers contributed to the report.
Some of the significant findings from the report......
1. A 27% loss of sea ice in a single year (2007).
2. Ice sheets around the poles are showing evidence of serious retreat and a this is expected to accelerate.
3. Seven of twelve Antarctic Peninsula ice shelves are either gone or are in severe decline.
4. Microscopic phytoplankton, which are at the base of the food chain have been found in North Atlantic waters where they have not been in 800,000 years. This is causing commercial and other fish species to migrate farther northward with the fishermen following.
5. Found a link that when the west Antarctic ice sheet collapses the Arctic warms up.
"This type of information makes the report all the more important because the changes we expect to see in the next few decades are going to be incredible, said Julie Brigham-Grette, co-chaired the NRC report.
Brigham-Grette says, "I think if you look at everything we've learned, we see the polar regions are much more vulnerable to global warming than we thought. Global biological and oceanographic systems are responding faster than we ever expected. Earth has gone through this before, and some past warm cycles have been extreme, but we as humans have never seen anything like it in our 10,000 years on the planet. It's extraordinary."
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