How Environmental Changes Are Affecting Maps

National Geographic Adjusts Arctic Maps To Account For Ice Loss

Dan Satterfield | August 9, 2015

The National Geographic Society has put out a press release about their recently updated Arctic maps, with a more realistic depiction of the muli-year ice pack. The animated gif above shows the dramatic and unprecedented change underway at the top of the world. Interestingly the Antarctic is different because instead of ocean you have land with thousands of feet of ice on top. As that land ice melts, it freshens the ocean water and it freezes easier. The slight increase in Antarctic ice is just as much a result of the warming planet as the loss of ice in the High Arctic.

Bright white sea ice reflects almost all of the incoming solar radiation back to space, whereas the dark ocean surface absorbs nearly all of it. Image source: Stephen Hudson / Norsk Polarinstitutt. Source: http://www.wunderground.com/climate/SeaIce.asp

<more at http://blogs.agu.org/wildwildscience/2015/08/09/national-geographic-adjusts-arctic-maps-to-account-for-ice-loss/; related link: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/08/150803-arctic-ice-obama-climate-nation-science/ (+Video) Yes, Mr. President, We Remade Our Atlas to Reflect Shrinking Ice; While discussing his new plan to combat global warming, the President referenced one of the most striking shifts in the history of National Geographic maps. August 3, 2015) and http://www.wunderground.com/climate/SeaIce.asp (Arctic Sea Ice Decline)>