As our NABOS Summer School continues, students have the chance to share what they know about climate. But everyone focuses on a different piece on it. Some students have already been doing their own research, and some have not yet started their own research, and are looking to expedition activities to get some inspiration and direction on their potential future work. What have we learned so far?
Marie (who is from Germany and lives in Sweden), talked about processes and variability of polar sea ice. She focuses on years with extremely low ice levels, then analyzes what was happening in the atmosphere at that time that may have affected ice conditions. In those low-ice years, more clouds and water vapor were present in the atmosphere during the spring. This enhanced the greenhouse effect, making it warmer and contributing to more ice melting.
Tobias (who is from Germany and lives in Norway) talked about the atmospheric boundary layer, which is the lowest part of the atmosphere dominated by surface effects. For example, on a clear winter night you’ll feel cold (well, maybe not in Miami). This cooling is stronger because only the boundary layer is being cooled (not the entire atmosphere). Think about sleeping under a blanket – it’s easy to warm the air under the blanket, but much harder to heat the entire room with your body. Same idea.
For me, one of the great things that came out of the lectures so far is that a student scientist approached me afterward and said, “is it ok if I write a blog on not just communicating science to the public, but also communicating science to colleagues from other disciplines, who may know the big picture, but still don’t know your specific topic?” This made my day.
Hi I’m Antwanique ‘ One Of Ms.Glibert Students & I Wanted To Know ‘ Do Icebreakers Contribute To Climate Change ?
Hi Antwanique, icebreaker ships don’t contribute to climate change, they are there to allow scientists to study the climate first hand so we all better understand it, and to hopefully provide people with information so that people and governments can make good decisions about climate. Icebreakers are ships that burn fuel of course, but they are very far and few between – and even when the icebreakers crack through the ice, the ship is so small, and the ocean so huge, that it doesn’t really hurt the ice. In fact, if I look behind the ship, I can actually see the ice already flowing back together!