Fading sea ice and polar contains: A Wellington physicist’s Arctic trip

Polar bears liked to go to and check out the equipment. Photo / Supplied

A Wellington scientist returning from brushes from polar bears the North Scratching post has urged New Zealand to pay money in research into the climatic impacts found on sea ice.

Victoria University Antarctic Research Société research fellow Dr Ruzica Dadic has just returned from the international Variety expedition to the Arctic, the largest polar operation of its kind in history.

The expedition used modern instruments to study sea ice physics and surface processes, but web page often attracted unexpected visitors.

“Polar bears belly to check out the equipment – they’re lively, enquiring creatures, ” Dadic talked about.

“We kept away from them so as not to harm them. Whenever we saw a polar bear, anyone went back to the ship.

“You just had to forget about it all your stuff, unplug all the performance in case they nibbled on the wires and the polar bear would come in addition sniff it, while you worried about the actual expensive equipment. ”

The Arctic is regarded as “ground zero for global warming” coupled with Dadic said the sea ice was probably disappearing fast.

“There’s the potential for big changes that we all don’t properly understand, ” this person said.

Melting ice also had a direct effect on the expedition, with the icebreaker mail Polarstern frozen into the ice to do something as a research base.

“The idea was to remain in the same spot, but the ship dissolved out in July so they had to locate a new sea ice flow or re-freeze it in, ” Dadic said.

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To become snow and ice physicist, Dadic studied typically the topmost layer of sea crushed ice while on the expedition.

“Usually this is snow yet once the snow went away it was mushy, melty sea ice, ” my wife said.

Of the melting of the snow would impair ocean temperatures, she said, all sorts of things she hoped New Zealand performed invest more research into.

“If the ice melt, the ocean will absorb 92 % of per cent more energy and heat, ” she said.

“There’s a feedback trap, so once this gets opened, there’s a runaway effect.

“For New Zealand, subsequently close to Antarctica, it’s important that we be aware of climate impacts of sea snowfall, and snow on sea winter snow storms. None of this has been studied enough. type