Spending time on board a research ship inevitably blurs the separation line between reporting and doing science, even though most of the time the ‘science’ part of it is limited to dragging a sled-load of gear out onto the ice or, at best, pulling up a sampling net from a dive hole.
But today I have perhaps contributed to science a little bit more than usual, if only by passing on information. Yesterday evening I handed Dave Barber, the chief scientist of the Circumpolar Flaw Lead study, a paper coming out on Friday in the journal Geophysical Research Letters (which my ever-alert colleagues had sent me). The paper describes how, in a model, Arctic sea ice loss leads to strongly accelerated permafrost thawing on land. Dave promised he would read it.
When I entered his office this morning, he was brimming with enthusiasm. “Very interesting stuff,” he said. “We should really start looking for what’s going on in the Canadian permafrost. A model study like this could direct an observational study. Actually, I think I’d like to do this myself.”
The paper, written by a team led by David Lawrence of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado, suggests that if massive sea ice loss, such as occurred last summer, will happen ever more often, Arctic land warming could triple in the near future. This would have an effect on the rate of permafrost melting up to 1,500 kilometres inland on the continents surrounding the Arctic Ocean.
