Arctic is tipping Published 05.02.2011

1000 scientists and politicians from 38 countries meet in Tromsø to discuss climate change in the Arctic.

Neither the scientists and politicians are in doubt: The global warming has started a huge and threatening development in the vast Arctic territory.

Scientists and politicians have come together at a conference, entitled: “Arctic tipping points.”

The Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, who opened the conference, made clear that the temperature has risen twice as much in the Arctic region and throughout the world, and huge areas of ice has disappeared.

“Scientists tell us that we might face a situation where the Arctic ecosystem collapses,” said Jonas Gahr Støre.

Stefan Rahmstorf of the Institute for Climate Impact Research in Postdam, Germany, stated that sea ice in the Arctic and the Greenland ice sheet is melting faster than any models have predicted. He stressed that the magic threshold of a two-degree global warming are too high to stop the dramatic melting of the Arctic and that we must realize that the melting of the Arctic is not reversible.

Dynamic ecosystem adapts slowly the conditions they work under. But when climate conditions change so significantly as in these years, sudden and rapid changes occur in ecosystems – especially in the Arctic, there are extra vulnerable. And it can happen in a way that you never imagine.

Scientists say that there is a particular point or a limit up to which ecosystems are in natural balance. You pass this point, you suddenly and quickly made dramatic changes in the ecosystem. And so it is no longer possible to stop the development or change. Several examples show that the ecosystem does not immediately change back to the old framework again, if the external forces again come to the right side of this important tipping point.

The observations of the first three days are on www.arcticfrontiers.com

For further information contact: Peter Bondo Christensen, NERI pbc @ dmu . dk