There are several major initiatives and programs in the Arctic specifically designed to monitor and measure the effects of climate change. It’s an obvious place to monitor as the Arctic is warming roughly four times faster than the global average, making it a critical region for climate research. Here are some of the key initiatives:

1. Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP)

• What it does: Established by the Arctic Council, AMAP monitors and assesses pollution and climate change in the Arctic.
• Focus areas: Climate change, pollution, ecosystem health, human health, and more.
• Why it matters: AMAP publishes regular scientific reports that inform policy and global understanding of Arctic climate impacts.

2. International Arctic Buoy Programme (IABP)

• What it does: Deploys and maintains drifting buoys in the Arctic Ocean to collect data on temperature, pressure, ice motion, and more.
• Use of data: Helps track sea ice movement and thickness and contributes to global climate models.

3. MOSAiC Expedition (2019–2020)

• What it was: The largest polar research expedition ever, led by Germany’s Alfred Wegener Institute.
• Details: A research icebreaker drifted with the Arctic sea ice for a year, collecting data on atmosphere, sea ice, ocean, and ecosystems.
• Impact: Generated massive datasets that are still being analyzed and are critical for improving climate models.

4. NASA’s Operation IceBridge and ICESat Missions

• Operation IceBridge: An airborne mission (2009–2021) that measured polar ice thickness.
• ICESat-2 (launched 2018): A satellite that measures changes in ice sheet elevation and sea ice thickness with high precision.
• Why important: These missions provide long-term records to track ice loss in Greenland and sea ice changes in the Arctic Ocean.

5. Sustaining Arctic Observing Networks (SAON)

• Aims: Improve the coordination of Arctic observations across different nations and scientific disciplines.
• Backed by: The Arctic Council and International Arctic Science Committee.
• Goal: To create a more comprehensive and accessible network of climate and environmental monitoring systems.

6. Indigenous-Led Monitoring Initiatives

• Examples: ELOKA (Exchange for Local Observations and Knowledge of the Arctic) and ICC (Inuit Circumpolar Council) efforts.
• Why it matters: Indigenous communities have centuries of observational knowledge that complements scientific data and helps track ecological changes.

The Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Act 2019 provides a framework by which New Zealand can develop and implement clear and stable climate change policies that: contribute to the global effort under the Paris Agreement to limit the global average temperature increase to 1.5° Celsius above pre-industrial levels

The decision was made by the Government last Thursday, in the middle of May, when they announced that all new oil and gas discovery exploration would be stopped off the coast of the country.  The strategy is purely focused on reducing the effects of climate change and it will be enforced by ensuring that no new exploration permits are granted.

New Zealand has put itself at the forefront of the battle against climate change and the move has been almost universally applauded.   The director of Greenpeace also praised the government as it and many other NGOs have petitioned for this stance for many years.    The goal of the government is to aim for new zero emissions, the policy is called ‘zero carbon’ and the target date is 2050.

There have been some voices of dissent, including that of the National Party, their energy spokesman is Johnathon Young and he said the move was counterproductive.  He stated that New Zealand still had to fulfill it’s energy requirements and may be forced to look at high emission alternatives instead.  New Zealand has an estimated 10 years left of gas reserves and the suggestion is that they will have to look elsewhere to import energy.  The spokesman continued that production would merely be moved to other places on the planet to the disadvantage of the New Zealand economy.

The government has emphasised  that current permits for both drilling and exploration will not be affected.  Their is confidence that no jobs would be threatened in the short term, it is estimated that over 11,000 people work in the New Zealand gas and oil industries.   The sector generates about $2.5 billion NZ dollars, mostly in the North Island region.

New Zealand has always been in particularly difficult place as regards climate change. Public opinion has always been mostly very positive behind these green efforts, however it also has a long standing tradition of coal mining going back over a century.   Although people will sit and watch programmes like the Blue Planet from the BBC iPlayer in New Zealand – accessible by this method, there are many remote areas completely dependent on coal for their incomes.

Indeed there are some places like the town of Blackball where there are several generations of miners who are completely reliant on the coal mining industry.  They are of course suffering as the global demand for coal falls, due to rising production costs and of course the social and environmental ones.

Further Information on UK Proxies: http://www.anonymous-proxies.org/2017/05/buy-uk-proxy-ip-address.html

It need tackling of course on a global level but we can do our part too, the worldwide changes start on a local level and gather momentum.  A prime example is our use of plastic, a decade ago no-one was concerned but now we are beginning to take notice of the waste and damage it causes to our planet.

Finite resources from the Earth’s crust, oceans and atmosphere will one day run out. They can be processed to provide energy and useful materials. Renewable resources are those which will not run out in the foreseeable future. One of the most important finite resources in the crust is crude oil.

When individuals start to take notice soon the corporations will follow public opinion, it’s in their interests after all.  If we make it a priority you will see global corporations and events making it theirs too.  If you like sport, just imagine the initiatives that can happen there as well.  When I sit down and watch the Premiership football on Match of the Day online on my computer (accessed like this) , I’m not alone there are millions of people across the world doing exactly the same – it’s a great place to engage an audience.

Anyone can help encourage investment in new wind, solar, wave and tidal electricity by opting to invest in greener electricity through your electricity company. The best policy, as used in Germany and many other countries, is certainly one that guarantees higher payments on the electricity market place for individuals and companies who generate renewable energy. Simply by ensuring a good price was actually paid for green electrical energy, the authorities helped to make wind turbines and solar panels an attractive investment, massively enhancing storage capacity in an only a few years.

Within the UK, the government took on a different plan called the Renewables Obligation. This meant that electricity providers needed to buy a certain proportion of their electricity from renewable generators, As a result of this, the companies could create ‘green’ tariffs simply by reallocating the renewable resource they had to purchase anyway to these particular customers, developing no extra capacity whatsoever. Good greener tariffs Don’t despair: you can nevertheless make a difference by choosing a green tariff if you make certain your electricity company actually transforms some of your money into new wind turbines, wave farms and solar panels.

Ethical Consumer journal gives each a straightforward rating to help you make up your mind. In 2007, the National Consumer Council likewise produced a report called ‘Reality or Rhetoric’, which ranked the various tariffs available to customers (www.ncc.org.uk). Both large and small scale eco-friendly energy projects will be needed to deliver our electricity needs in the years to come. By generating renewable energy in your home, you can easily reduce your monthly bills, help sustain a new industry and reduce your carbon dioxide emissions.

Different modern technologies are actually suitable for different houses, and the best option for you will definitely depend upon where you reside, in addition to the design of your house, so do get professional guidance before purchasing any kit. Renewable energy systems that have been used successfully in homes include solar panels, rooftop wind turbines, wood pellet boilers and ground’ and air source heat pumps. Grants to help install renewable energy at home are also available from the government, although they are usually in short supply. In the UK, the Energy Saving Trust and the Low Carbon Buildings Programme can help find expert advice and any available grants.

Additional: information on accessing Match of the Day and Sports online using a VPN.

 http://iplayerusa.org/index.php/enjoy-a-match-of-the-day-stream-from-anywhere/

One of the industries currently in the firing line is that of the Food and Drink manufacturers.  Ever since the Blue Planet programme which aired on BBC iPlayer about the amount of plastics in our oceans,  you can watch it abroad too now – this is from France.  We have seen some more positive movement from many firms in this sector.

There is an industry wide initiative in the UK called Ambition 25 which is leading transformational change with environmental sustainability at it’s core.  There are other positive moves including the British Soft Drinks Association which is focusing on sustainability within it’s Waste and Resource Action Programme.

The figure are actually enormous so action does need to be taken, it’s estimated 16 million plastic bottles are dumped into the UK environment every day!  If you do the maths that’s nearly 6 trillion plastic bottles a year, so it’s truly terrifying to think of what the global figure might be.

Other sectors have similar issues, and there’s some huge environmental concerns in other sectors too.  Take for example alcoholic drinks, it’s probably no surprise after the current year’s event that we’re drinking more too.  Take for example the process of making the malted barley used in whisky and beer, global production just for this small section requires the energy of all the worlds nuclear power plants produce over two days.  That’s just for producing malted barley, so you can imagine what the human race’s other energy requirements end up as.

The alcohol industry has identified this rather than specifically packaging to be a core environmental concern.  This makes sense, there’s less plastic involved in alcohol consumption, although still significant.  Nevertheless being able to prioritize makes sense to achieve positive environmental goals.

There are plenty of companies looking at using more sustainable energy sources for example.  Projects like the one installing a biomass boiler at Chase Distillery’s main production facility.  The boiler named Huxley is powered solely by waste woodchip and an energy crop planted on the distilleries farm.

Another fascinating initiative is from London’s Hackney Brewery who have created a beer made from surplus bread.  It’s called Toast ale and it’s focus is to use up some of the huge amount of wasted bread that is never eaten in the UK.  The amounts are staggering and of course difficult to accurately measure but some estimates suggest over 900,000 tonnes of bread are wasted every year.  The initiative is the idea of an environmental campaigned Tristram Stuart and the profits are going to the charity partner feedback.

It’s an initiative well worth supporting and tastes really good too ! Which I guess considering the content is not surprising.

The Earth will not consume the electromagnetic energy that hits it all. This really is significant for the World’s energy balance, because just energy that is absorbed leads to the temperature of the Earth/atmosphere system. The percentage of the overall energy reflected by the Earth (or some item) is known as the Albedo.

A totally absorptive surface has an albedo of 0, an item using an albedo of 0.5 consumes as much energy as it reflects back, and a totally reflective surface has an albedo of 1. In case the World had an albedo of 1, no energy would be absorbed by it in the Sun as well as the planet will not be a lot hotter.

The Earth’s average albedo is determined by the composition and physical state of its own surface. Procedures and multiple variables can alter the albedo of a surface with time. For instance, as soot and grime settle on fresh ice or snow, and as water turns to ice the albedo increases, the albedo decreases. Likewise, vegetation cover affects the albedo of the landscape: deserts have albedos of 20- savannas, 35% are around 15%, and rainforests are around 5%.

Seasonally, winter snow and ice cover increases the albedo of Earth’s temperate and polar areas. Exactly the same occurs with all the coming and going of ice ages, on geological timescales. The Earth’s albedo is influenced by particles. Soot particles consume energy directly, and from combustion have low albedos, leading to heating. Aerosols including sulfates that are airborne powerfully reflect shortwave radiation, so the Earth’s overall albedo raises. Clouds, which are made from condensed water vapor, additionally raise the Earth’s albedo.

Human activity effects vegetation cover, land use, as well as the concentration of soot particles, aerosols and water vapor . This makes the result of human activity on the Earth’s albedo evaluate that is hard.

Further Reading –

Accessing BBC iPlayer Environmental News from USA – http://iplayerusa.org/

Access to US and UK Documentaries on Netflix – http://www.anonymous-proxies.org/2016/07/what-are-residential-vpn-services.html 

Alternative Sources via Residential VPNs

To access the latest environmental news sourced from one of the oldest broadcasters in the world you cab visit this site to access the BBC from outside the UK – BBC iPlayer Abroad

When hunting for seals they use their sense of odor. They could detect the odour of an aglu, or a seal’s breathing hole, up to one mile away. A bear attack the seal’s mind when it comes to air and will wait by the hole, once located. In hunting conditions, the bear will eat the seal fat, leaving animals the carcass. Polar bears will eat nearly anything, when food is scarce. When in proximity to human settlements, they’ve even been known to eat trash like Styrofoam. Polar bears do not hibernate like bears, but a state is entered into by females while pregnant. After mating in the spring, a female polar bear spends the summer ingesting considerable amounts of food and building a maternity den in a snow drift to prepare for the arrival of her cubs.

Some of the most revealing documentary footage of Polar Bears has come from the BBC in it’s current show – Blue Planet 2.    David Attenborough has presented many shows over the years concerning these beautiful creatures and you can get some of them online.  You just need to hide your IP address to access from outside the country however be careful as the BBC has been blocking VPN programmes recently.

At the fall, she enters into a dormant state, remaining this way even when it gives birth. The litter, usually two cubs, will probably spend 2 years with their mother learning essential searching and survival skills. Polar bears would be currently listed as vulnerable from IUCN’s Red List. Global warming greatly impacts the destiny of the polar bear. A reduction of large masses of ice results in limited access to seals. Not only does this adversely affects the health of adult polar bears, it also hampers the successful reproduction and nutrition of new bear cubs. Rising temperatures also result in unstable maternity dens, as snowdrifts melt and collapse.

A climate modification fact sheet has been compiled by Rahmstorf. The BBC has produced a convenient, one page outline called Climate Change Explained in Six Pictures, that contains charts showing climate trends.  You can get access from other countries by changing your IP address online. How can scientists make claims that a period was changing over since records of the weather date back just a hundred years or so? In turns out that Earth retains a record of its climate in ways that are unexpected. In latest years fewer and fewer scientists have disagreed from exactly the widely held position that global warming and climate modification are actually happening. One reason some individuals are skeptical about global warming is they doubt computer models are sufficiently good to model the climate decades to the future.

There is more on how scientists create computer models of exactly the climate in a great BBC news article Models key to climate forecasts by Dr Vicky Pope who works in the UK’s Hadley Centre. The BBC is a great resource for up to date climate change information and a host of documentaries. All of them are available on BBC iPlayer for up to 30 days and you can even access them outside the UK if you use a VPN like this one.

The precise effect of climate change is complicated: it’s also leading to greater snow, that is building up glaciers in some areas at the same time as they’re being eroded elsewhere. As global warming gathers pace, many portions of Earth will see their climate modification considerably. In case the climate change occurred gradually, things would have enough time to adapt: plants which like the cool could progressively change northwards and grow at higher latitudes.   The temperature changes overall may be fairly predictable but the effect on our weather is more difficult to assess.  Nature will adapt however it could cause huge problems all over the world to human habitations.  Rising sea levels and temperatures will likely make much of our planet uninhabitable, which will obviously cause massive social, economic and political problems.  The current refugee issue is definitely going to look somewhat trivial if this happens.

The research in question was focussed on developing technologies to help reduce the environmental damage caused by exploiting the vast oil sand reserves in Canada. If you’ve not heard of these it refers to the loose sand or shale that are saturated with a dense and very thick form of petrol (also known as tar or bitumen).  These are found in huge quantities in Canada and contain a substantial amount of oil.

These deposits have been known about for many years, however the extraction was always too expensive to be viable commercially.  Now rising oil costs and the introduction of new technologies have made the extraction commercially viable but not ethical in many peoples opinion.

Protesters claim that tar sands cause numerous environmental problems including vast amounts of deforestation to clear the areas and access to the deposits.  They also point out that the mining of tar sands releases over three times as much CO2 as normal oil production.  Many estimates point towards mining of these tar sand deposits becoming the biggest single contributor in North America to climate change.

Scary stuff, it is this sort of press that has led Helmholtz to withdraw from the research project.  The argument is of course does the withdrawing of technical expertise help in any way, should researchers be drawn into political and environmental battles.  Their role after all was to help minimize the environmental impact of a the project.  It may be the problems for Helmholtz may be due to  the upcoming EU designations of companies involved in producing high pollution oil reserves.

At the very best scenario it was seen as a huge risk to the companies reputation.  On numerous TV documentaries the involvement was highlighted – check out the online versions of ARD and ZDF.  If you’re outside the country you’ll need a French proxy to access these shows (and of course speaking French would help), try here for help.

It’s a very stark example of how research companies need to be careful about what projects they get involved with especially highly commercial and controversial ones.

Further Reading: http://www.uktv-online.com/bbc-iplayer-on-the-ipad-abroad/

The primary risk related specifically to Arctic Oil and gas exploration of course is that of an oil spill. There is only one way to describe this situation it would be utterly catastrophic. Here some quotes of people who take an interest in the Arctic and it’s environment:

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

“The cataclysmic impact of an oil spill in the High Arctic Ocean is unimaginable. That’s why we made the decision that there needed to be moratorium on Arctic oil and gas exploration.”

David Miller, CEO of World Wildlife Fund Canada

“It’s quite clear from our work at WWF that risk to nature of drilling is far too great to be worth taking,

Excepting some opinionated American individuals (unfortunately in power) there is pretty much a consensus of the risks of climate change.   We are running out of time to drastically reduce our carbon footprint as a species, so to even consider mining for more of these fossil fuels in one of the environmentally sensitive places on Earth seems like utter madness.

However this is what the Norwegian government are doing, opening up a new oil frontier in the Arctic ocean together with several oil companies.  They have granted licenses for 12 oil companies to start exploration in the Barents Sea, Statoil is to drill to the far North in Korpfjell.

The Arctic is already melting due to our planet burning fossil fuels and to even consider allowing new oil wells to be set up there is a triumph of greed over common sense.   The Norwegian Government has a duty to provide a healthy and safe environment which is documented in it’s own constitution.    This in addition to the Paris Agreement should have been enough to prevent these rigs being allowed anywhere near the Arctic ocean.

Additional Resources.

To access the BBC and it’s documentary section from outside the UK is difficult, but the following resources will help – Can I Get BBC iPlayer in Spain, John Williams, 2016.

Free Trial accessible from Australia and most European Countries :  bbc iplayer abroad free trial

Remember all the records for the minimum level of sea ice have occurred in the last decade, only 2006 has been a slight exception in a definite severe downward trend.   However in some ways it’s not just the rate of the ice melting that is the most worrying but rather the type of ice.

The new data revealed is that older ice is now starting to thin substantially which makes it much more liable to melt in the warmer temperatures.   Some of this ice has taken many generations to form and it appears now that much of it is getting thinner and unlikely to survive many more melting summers.

During the 1980’s the older ice made up something like %25 of the overall ice cover.  The figure now is probably around 3%, in reality there isn’t much left and we can see that an ice-free Arctic over the Summer is now more than likely it’s almost inevitable.

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