Unsung & Unnoticed, Arctic Ice And Climate Research Continues - NYT

[hatrack]

On April 22, two divers from the University of Washington entered a manhole-size opening in the veneer of floating sea ice around the North Pole. For the fifth year in a row they descended into the blue-green 29-degree water in pursuit of the least glorious, and perhaps most important, facet of earth and ocean science: the collection of basic information on conditions in the same place year after year.

Their task was to retrieve a two-mile-long strand of instruments that for a year had been anchored to the sea floor recording shifting currents, temperatures, salinity, ice thickness and other vital signs. Now, after an acoustic signal released it from the anchor, the strand was bunched in a tangle of floats and Kevlar line under the ice. The divers are part of a team of nearly two dozen researchers who have been trying to establish the first continuing record of changing ocean conditions near the North Pole.

EDIT

In the same way, quotidian efforts by Charles D. Keeling of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego to measure levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide — month after month, year after year, decade after decade — provided the first clear evidence that humans were sharply increasing the concentration of this heat-trapping greenhouse gas. Ralph Keeling, also at Scripps and the son of Charles Keeling (who died last June), has been trying to sustain his father's carbon dioxide monitoring project in a time of shrinking budgets. Although such work may seem inconsequential or boring to some outsiders, he said, it has its own special feeling of urgency. "To keep up with the latest pulse of the planet in a warming world is quite exciting, similar to watching the charts of an unstable patient in the emergency room of a hospital," Dr. Keeling said.

Trends in the Arctic so far have been reflected in readings of sea ice thickness and the area it covers, taken by satellites and nuclear submarines. While satellites have helped track increasing summer retreats of the ice over three decades, they cannot reveal the temperature, salinity and currents of the layered ocean below. Declassified information collected by submarines has shown that the ice has also been thinning but the data are limited to corridors used in the cold war. Glaring gaps persist in the data, and as a result scientists have had difficulty putting the recent big changes in air, ice and ocean conditions in the far north into context.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/09/science/09arct.html

[YankeyMCC]

1. Yeah but can they hit a home run or

look sexy in skimpy clothing?

:sarcasm:

Seriously, I enjoy the fun things in life too but this piece points out something that always bothers me. How off-aim the public identification of who's doing important work in society.