Ice in August

Rainbows were a dime a dozen in July but it’s now August and dry as a bone. That’s not good for a brown lawn and an overworked air-conditioner. Two tulip trees in my front yard are sprouting dry dead leaves and Rocco, my Peppertree rescue mutt, pants so hard at night I have to wear earplugs. Where’s that furious forecast calling for an 80 percent chance of thunderstorms like Pittsburgh is battling right about now? And I just read on Reuters that flooding has increased from 60 to 100 per year in the last 2 years with some 70 serious floods registered in Sudan, Ethiopia, Myanmar, Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, China, India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Colombia just this year.

But in a few short days I’m off to Greenland where I’m expecting more than my fair share of drizzling rain. Melting ice glaciers, river run-off and disappearing polor sea ice is the kind of precipitation that spells disaster for the world. It has something to do with thermohaline circulation, the Gulf Stream, salinity and the Great Ocean Conveyor Belt. I don’t claim to know all the facts but that’s when I can turn to friends at NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association) Dr. Rick Lumpkin and Dr. John Kermond. I met both guys while shooting the Semester at Sea documentary on the MV Explorer in 2005. Both scientists were aboard to deploy drifters and argo floats that measure ocean currents. It was a science that sparked my curiosity and understanding about CO2 levels. But the fickle nature of climate change is deeply complex and the phenomenon will largely leapfrog right over my viewfinder if I don’t do a little research beforehand.