Meltdown in the North.

The sea and ice glaciers are melting in the Arctic. These changes are bound to affect conditions of the rest of the planet because the polar regions exert an outsize control on the earth's heat balance. A complex web of climatic feedback systems makes it extremely difficult to know whether greenhouse warming is the primary cause of the transformation in the Arctic. The most alarming by far has been the reduction in the Arctic sea-ice cover. To cope with the constellation of changes in the Arctic in a concerted fashion and to develop an ability to predict what will happen next rather than lust react to it, several federal agencies have begun to coordinate their Arctic research in a program called SEARCH (Study of Environmental Arctic Change). INSETS: A CATALOGUE OF CHANGES;THE HARD, NOT SO COLD FACTS;A COMPLEX WEB;WINDS OF CHANGE