Europe at the forefront of arctic polar research
Europe is providing insights into climate history and is at the cutting edge of polar research. This was the consensus as the European Commission showcased EU polar projects on 28 February in Bremerhaven, Germany. The presentation of the EU polar research projects coincided with the departing of scientists from these projects for another research expedition, aboard Polarstern, a double-hulled icebreaker research vessel. 'Europe is at the forefront of international efforts in polar research. The North and South Poles are unique indicators of climate change processes and therefore polar research is a key element in our overall research effort on global climate change, ' said EU Research Commissioner, Philippe Busquin. An example of European prominence in this area is the project for ice coring in Antarctica (EPICA), which has recovered ice near bedrock from a depth of over 3,000 metres. This ice is approximately 800,000 years old. It is believed that information about how our climate worked in the past is locked in the ice. EPICA involves 13 partners from eight EU countries as well as Norway and Switzerland, and has a total budget of 7.06 million euro. It is coordinated by the European science foundation (ESF) and funded by the EU under the Fifth Framework programme's Energy, environment and sustainable development programme (EESD). While other ice coring research initiatives have taken place around the world EPICA provides the oldest ice ever retrieved in Antarctica. Such a retrieval is a 'milestone' for scientific research in this area and is expected to enhance scientists understanding of current global climate change and predict future changes, Heinz Miller, coordinator of EPICA, told CORDIS News. Mr Miller said that the final outcome of the discovery is expected to help shape environmental policy in Europe. The EPICA team also works closely with other polar research projects, such as the EU Arctic ice cover simulation experiment (AICSEX) project, which uses a century scale perspective to assess the changes in the arctic climate system. Also funded under FP5's EESD programme, AICSEX involves seven partners from the EU and Norway and has a total budget of 2.42 million euro. AICSEX scientists have recently analysed the ice cover in the Arctic Ocean and established that significant changes have occurred in the latter part of the last century. These changes have resulted in the ice area decreasing by 8 per cent over the last 20 years, which is a comparable to the surface area of France. However, while previous warming (1920-1940) and cooling (1940-1960) periods in the Arctic were caused by natural fluctuations in the climate system, 'we believe there are strong indications that the warming trend and decrease in the ice extent in the last 20 years cannot be explained by natural processes alone,' said Ola M. Johannessen, coordinator of AICSEX. Speaking to CORDIS News, Professor Johannessen added that it was essential to assess all available ice observations from the Arctic Ocean during the last century in order to validate climate models for prediction in this century. Such predictions indicate that a 80 per cent reduction of the ice cover could take place during summer time at the end of this century, while during winter time only a 20 per cent reduction could occur. The project findings suggest that such developments could have both a positive and negative impact on the climate. For instance, replacing ice cover with cold water, which has high capacity for carbon dioxide (CO2) absorption, could create a new sink for atmospheric CO2. Similarly, decreasing ice cover would benefit marine transportation and provide easier and safer logistics for offshore oil activities in the Arctic region. Fisheries in new previously ice-covered regions could potentially contribute positively to food supplies. However, melting ice would also result in less plankton and thus have a negative effect on the marine biodiversity in the area. Furthermore, drastically decreasing ice would affect the transport of heat by the Gulf Stream and North Atlantic current, which, it is believed, would have significant consequences on the climate in Europe.