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WVPE is your gateway to green and sustainable resources in Michiana. Sustainability is meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. This is accomplished by finding a balance between businesses, the environment, and our society (people, planet, and profit).State, National and International resources on sustainability include:The Environmental Protection AgencyThe Natural StepSustainability Dictionary45 Sustainability Resources You Need to Know Explore ways to support sustainability in the Michiana area through the Green Links Directory.Sept. 17, 2019 from 2-3:30pm"Global Warming: A Hot Topic"Sept. 17, 19, 24, and 26All sessions are from 2-3:30pmGreencroft Goshen Community Center in the Jennings Auditorium1820 Greencroft Blvd.Goshen, IN 46526The event will look at possible solutions and suffering as well as consequences beyond warmer weather. The event will examine what other civilizations have or haven’t done when faced with environmental problems. Plus there will be an exploration of the biggest unknown in the climate system: What will the humans do? Paul Meyer Reimer teaches physics, math and climate change at Goshen College. The events are presented by the Lifelong Learning Institute. The Institute can be reached at: (574) 536-8244lifelonglearning@live.comhttp://life-learn.org/

Arctic Is Warming At 'Astonishing' Rates, Researchers Say

By Christopher Joyce

Published December 13, 2016 at 4:30 PM EST

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Temperatures are up and ice cover is down in the Arctic this year. Scientists say climate change is altering the region faster than other parts of the planet.

Scientists released this year's so-called Arctic Report Card on Tuesday, and it is a dismal one.

Researchers say the Arctic continues to warm up at rates they call "astonishing." They presented their findings at the American Geophysical Union's fall meeting in San Francisco.

"The Arctic as a whole is warming at least twice as fast as the rest of the planet," says Jeremy Mathis, climate scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and one of the report card's authors.

The cause of the warming is in part due to a feedback loop unique to the Arctic's northern climate. Normally, the region stays cool because snow and ice reflect a lot of sunlight back into space. But warmer temperatures are melting that snow and ice. The melting snow exposes darker ground and water that absorb more of the sun's heat. That makes the Arctic warm up even faster.

Mathis adds that the warming is getting progressively worse.

"The Arctic is getting persistently warmer; sea ice is continuing to show declines, particularly during the summer months," he says. "The second big story for 2016 has been the winter temperatures."

Mathis says it wasn't so long ago that the temperature in Fairbanks, Alaska, where he lives, would drop to minus 40 F for weeks at a time in the winter.

"Now since about 2012 and 2013, it's pretty rare for the temperature to even hit minus 40 in Fairbanks," he says.

Warmer winters have created what polar scientist Marco Tedesco calls a new "precondition" for a higher rate of melting in the spring, when the sun first rises, ending the dark Arctic winter.

"You change the physics of the snowpack so that snow becomes more vulnerable to melting as soon as the sun comes up," he says.

Tedesco, from the Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory in New York, says polar regions are not as resilient to warming as other places. That's because it takes only one or two degrees to change the Arctic from a frozen world to an unfrozen — and very different — one.

"In other places, going from 75 F to 80 F might not make such a great difference," he says. "But if you cross the melting point, you are basically stepping into a completely new world."