LABRADOR SEA, Aug. 15, 2007(CBS) "Everywhere you look there's a puzzle; everywhere you look
there's beauty," says Eddy Carmack.
Carmack has been bringing that
curiosity to the Arctic nearly every year since 1969. He's had close encounters
with polar bears and taken icebreaking trips to the North Pole. Carmack is an
expert in ocean currents, and he's got a simple message: What happens in the
Arctic affects climate everywhere.
Even for Carmack, explaining the
complexities of climate change could take a lifetime. But in the short time
CBS News science and technology correspondent Daniel Sieberg had with
him, the two went by helicopter to an ice floe off the coast of Greenland to get
an idea of what's at stake.
"We're standing on a river of ice that's
streaming out of the Arctic," he explained. "When it reaches the North Atlantic
it's going to melt. It'll make the waters there fresher and lighter and affect
the whole ocean circulation."
As the temperature of Arctic water
increases, Carmack says, it can lead to more extreme weather around the planet,
because oceans act as the earth's heating and cooling system.
Carmack
says it's not a stretch, long term, to say that what's happening in the Arctic
could have an impact on everything from hurricane patterns and strengths to
drought in the West.
The Arctic Ocean was once thought to be isolated
from the rest of the world's waterways. But scientists now know that it's
intricately connected to both the Pacific and the Atlantic, and that even minor
changes in the Arctic can affect those oceans as well.
The Arctic waters
don't flow in a perfect shape, but rather zig and zag within our neighboring
oceans through various "gateways." So as these waters warm, the effects for both
climate and wildlife can transfer to the rest of the world. Carmack uses what he
calls "folk science" to demonstrate this and to get school kids interested.
Bottles containing a short message from elementary students and
Carmack's contact information are tossed overboard each time the ship stops to
collect data.
To date, about 4,000 of the bottles have been tossed into
the water; about 150 have been found.
On average, the bottles take about
two years to be found. The places they show up might surprise you: from Norway
to Alaska, France, and even Brazil. Unsuspecting citizens have become lab
assistants in a global study.
It's a simple experiment that proves a
serious concept: As these waters travel downstream, they carry consequences for
all of us, proving our vital connection to the top of our world.
