Climate Change in the Polar Regions

Description

The polar regions have experienced some remarkable environmental changes in recent decades, such as the Antarctic ozone hole, the loss of large amounts of sea ice from the Arctic Ocean and major warming on the Antarctic Peninsula. The polar regions are also predicted to warm more than any other region on Earth over the next century if greenhouse gas concentrations continue to rise. Yet trying to separate natural climate variability from anthropogenic factors still presents many problems. This book presents a thorough review of how the polar climates have changed over the last million years and sets recent changes within a long term perspective. The approach taken is highly cross-disciplinary and the close links between the atmosphere, ocean and ice at high latitudes are stressed. The volume will be invaluable for researchers and advanced students in polar science, climatology, global change, meteorology, oceanography and glaciology.

John Turner is a research scientist at the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge, UK where he leads a project investigating recent Antarctic climate change and how it may change over the next century. He has had a long involvement with the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR): he was the Chief Officer of the Physical Sciences Standing Scientific Group from 2002 to 2006 and chaired the steering committee of the SCAR programme on Antarctica and the Global Climate System from 2005 to 2008. He is the co-author of Antarctic Meteorology and Climatology (1997) and Polar Lows: Mesoscale Weather Systems in the Polar Regions (2003), both of which are published by Cambridge University Press. He was awarded the International Journal of Climatology Prize of the Royal Meteorological Society in 2005. Gareth Marshall is a climatologist at the British Antarctic Survey where he is the climate programme coordinator. He has worked at BAS since 1995 after completing his PhD at the University of Cambridge. His research has included field work in both polar regions and he has contributed to more than 50 scientific papers. Recently, he was a corresponding author on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report. He is also a member of the World Climate Research Programme CLIVAR Southern Ocean panel, which addresses climate variability and predictability in this region.

'Both authors have extensive experience of the Antarctic regions from the course of their work for the British Antarctic Survey, and this experience and knowledge is clearly present in the book.' IEA Greenhouse Gas Programme