[Music]
[Music]
One of the key variables that we at
NASA have been studying with satellite data is sea ice in the polar regions.
Sea ice is a really important component of the polar regions.
It does things like insulates between the ocean and the atmosphere,
reflects solar radiation, extends over a very large area
in both polar regions, and so it has an impact. It has an impact that
propgates somtetimes to lower latitudes also. So, we want to
study this, and the only way, really, to study it effectively on the large scale is
with satellite data, which give us a beautiful
view of both north polar and south polar region[s], so we've been doing that,
and we've been doing it for 30 years, and we've been finding that in the Arctic case that
Arctic sea ice has actually decreased quite a bit over that time span
of about 30 years, whereas the Antarctic has not.
The Antarctic has been increasing. This is a puzzle that
many of us are interested in solving, and it also -- the Arctic
case fits in really well with global warming and has many people
interested because of how it fits in, and the impacts that it has
on other life forms in the arctic regions.
