"Shrubs are appearing where before there were none; gray whales are venturing farther north; clams and their predators, diving sea ducks, are less plentiful. The ice is melting.
These disparate phenomena are signs of a radical change in the Arctic ecosystem. Moreover, changes in the Arctic mean changes everywhere else. That consensus is part of a broad discussion among 400 Arctic scientists meeting in Seattle this week as part of a new multimillion-dollar effort to study the far-reaching changes occurring in the far north.
The Study of Environmental Arctic Change (SEARCH), sponsored by the National Science Foundation and based at the University of Washington, has brought together climatologists, biologists, oceanographers and social anthropologists to examine how warmer temperatures are altering life on the tundra and how the changes may affect the rest of the Earth.
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The Arctic, which has seen temperatures increase 3 to 4 degrees Fahrenheit over the past century, is on track to become as warm as it has been in 130,000 years, according to Jonathan Overpeck, a University of Arizona paleoclimatologist, who studies the history of climate change. The conference and its research outgrowth will help establish a key unknown, Overpeck said: What is the point of no return? The point at which a reduction in greenhouse emissions will no longer matter? When will life be inexorably changed? (Overpeck said that although there's a broad scientific consensus that human beings are responsible for the recent warming, there are dissenting scientists, who say the change is not caused by human activity.)"
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