Wednesday, November 12, 2008

The Arctic Ice Cap

Have you ever have heard of the Arctic Ice Cap? Well I have heard of the Arctic Ice cap. Did you know it is on top of Earth? It’s called the North Pole for some people in some other countries. Does it just sit there or does it just melt away?
Although the Arctic ice cap is huge in size, it also is melting quicker then predicted in the past. It is very natural that the Arctic Ice cap is melting in the summer and refreezing in the winter. The scientists always check the size in September. But in September of 2007 the new low record was 1.59 million sq miles of the Arctic ice Cap that has melted. In September 2005 the arctic ice cap melted to a record, to a low of 2.05 million sq miles. The Arctic Ice Cap will be ice-free by the summer of 2100, but if the temperature keeps getting higher the ice will be gone by 2030!
The causes of the Arctic ice cap melting is global warming. Global warming is caused by emissions coming off of cars, snow machines, factories, and aerosol cans people use everyday for years. These gases get trapped in the ozone layer. The sun’s rays get stuck in the ozone layer and it causes the earth to get warmer. The gases will stay in the atmosphere for 50 years. Its like the earth is in an oven and the ice is melting very quickly.
One effect of the melting Arctic Ice Cap is that the Northwest Passage is navigable for a short time. The Northwest Passage is a shortcut on top of the world that will go across to any shipping company and it is 4,000 miles. If shipping companies use the Northwest Passage the cost of getting the products or receiving them will cost a lot less. Some companies cross the Northwest Passage in the summer. If some companies just go ahead with traveling in the winter it may cause many environmental disasters. Because the ice burgs are very sharp so if a ship hits on it may cause oil spill. Oil spills may poison many creatures and they will die for certain. The scientists believe that the Northwest Passage will be open by 2015. A lot of the poor shipping companies starts to cross the Arctic ice cap, but it is unsafe says scientists because there are a lot of sharp ice burgs that can be penetrated and cause the oil to spill all over the ocean floor.
If the world was without the Arctic ice cap what would it look like? The Arctic Ice cap is melting all because of two main causes, the greenhouse effect and global warming. There many things people can do to reduce emissions. This is important because we can

No comments:

Post a Comment