Sea Ice Loss Could Alter Arctic Air Chemistry

Andrea Thompson, OurAmazingPlanet.com Published: Apr 25, 2013, 1:48 PM EDT From our partners

Paul Shepson, Purdue University

Kerri Pratt, an National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellow, conducts a snow-chamber experiment in minus 44 degree Fahrenheit windchill near Barrow, Alaska.

Over the past 30 years, the Arctic has warmed more than any other place on the planet, and that warming and the resulting melt of the region's sea ice presents a number of potential adverse effects, from impacts on weather systemsto the decline in the habitats of native species.

Now, a team of scientists have found evidence that the Arctic warming and melting sea ice could be changing the chemistry of the Arctic atmosphere through reactions that happen on the snow that sits atop the sea ice and in the air above it. These reactions purge pollutants from the atmosphere and destroy toxic surface-level ozone (which differs from the protective ozone layer higher up in the atmosphere).

http://www.weather.com/news/science/environment/sea-ice-loss-20130425