Читать книгу Polar Exploration. A practical handbook for North and South Pole expeditions онлайн

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The polar regions are changing dramatically as a result of climate warming. Increased summer melt-water on the surface of Greenland's glaciers makes its way to their underbellies, lubricating the rock/ice interface and speeding glacial flow. Greenland's mass balance is out of whack; more icebergs calve into the sea than snow falls onto its ice-cap. Greenland is liquefying and the melt is contributing to sea level rise. Looking further north, in the short ten years I've been skiing on the Arctic Ocean I have witnessed changes: more first-year ice, thinner pack, a greater frequency of storms. It doesn't bode well.

Turning south, the colossal ice-cap of East Antarctica is almost unchanged, but the Antarctic Peninsula is transforming dramatically – receding glaciers, declining sea ice, summer temperatures rarely dropping below freezing, diminishing Adelie penguin numbers, grass and moss growth on hills.

Climate change has brought the polar regions a notch forward in our collective consciousness, the irony being that more interest leads to more activity. Fortunately a robust nationally administered permit system, in Antarctica at least, coupled with the world-class environmental ethics and practices of various organisations, puts environmental consciousness and responsibility squarely in the hands of the user.