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>>Interviewer: As we enter the dog days of summer in the United States, things are heating up even

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more for farther north with melting Arctic sea ice, and here to tell us

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more about it, out of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt,

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Maryland is NASA scientist Walt Meier. Thanks for joining us, Walt. 

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>>Walt: Alright, thanks for having me. >>Interviewer: The Arctic is losing sea ice at a faster rate in 

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recent years. How are things looking this year, and what are we seeing in the long-term trend? 

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>>Walt: Well this year, we're reaching the end of the summer

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as the sea ice, the ice floating on the ocean, declines through the 

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summer under the 24 hours of sunlight. And we're 

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about a month away from the minimum, maybe a little bit less. And

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this is looking not as extreme as we've seen in some recent years, 

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like the record low in 2012, but it is a

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one of the lowest that we've seen in our 36-year satellite

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record and it's continuing a long-term trend that we've seen 

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since 1979 where we've lost about a third

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of the sea ice covered area from the Arctic Ocean and 

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actually over half of the thickness and really two thirds of the volume. 

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So we've really seen a dramatic change in the ice cover over the last 35 years or so. 

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>>Interviewer: Why are we seeing these changes in the Arctic? 

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>>Walt: Well, basically the Earth is warming. And the warmer 

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temperatures are melting the ice, and we're seeing particularly warming in the Arctic

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and that's actually part of a feedback with the sea ice, where

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as the warming temperatures melt the ice, the ice goes away and 

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the ice that acts as a reflector of the Sun's energy and helps keep 

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things cool is disappearing. And then the ocean, which is much darker, 

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and more absorptive of the Sun's energy, 

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there's more ocean exposed and it's warming up the ocean and melting more ice

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and then warming the atmosphere, as we get this amplification of the warming 

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in the Arctic. >>Interviewer: What is NASA doing to understand these changes? 

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>>Walt: Well NASA's been looking at the sea ice for well over 

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35 years, with satellites and aircraft, and

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this year we have a particularly exciting mission called ARISE

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that's flying up over the Arctic sea ice. It's leaving next 

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week actually, at the end of August. And it's going to be flyling

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over sea ice and through the clouds and looking at the interaction between 

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the clouds and the atmosphere and the sea ice itself to see how

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these interact and better understand the processes that are driving the loss of the sea ice

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as well as potentially changes in the Arctic climate

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and weather. >>Interviewer: How will these changes affect the United States? 

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>>Walt: Well, as I mentioned the Arctic climate is 

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changing. But what happens in the Arctic doesn't stay in the Arctic. It's not like Las Vegas. 

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What we see is the Arctic is very much 

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connected to the lower latitudes and to the United States, particularly 

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through the jet stream, which is the high-level fast winds 

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that flow across the United States. And sometimes they get wavier 

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which lets air come down from the Arctic, and actually that

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leads to extreme weather patterns. And we're seeing a more wavy pattern 

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as the sea ice has been going down over the last decades. 

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>>Interviewer: Where can we learn more? >>Walt: You can learn a little more at 

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NASA.gov/EarthRightNow, where you can see

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information on all of NASA's many satellites that are looking at all aspects 

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of the Earth, as well as images and other information. Anything you really want 

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to know about with what NASA's doing to study the Earth. 

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>>Interviewer: Dr. Walt Meier, thank you very much for joining us. >>Walt: Alright, thank you.