Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have been melting at an accelerating pace over the past twenty years. According to the latest forecasts, sea levels will rise by more than one metre by 2100.

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We need to find solutions urgently to prevent the Arctic
and Antarctic ice from melting at an explosive speed and the permafrost from
releasing methane into the atmosphere. Because if that happens, it will not be
pretty, John Moore says.

Moore, 60, is a research professor in the Global
Change Research Group and a geophysicist specialized in glaciology. He earned his
PhD at the British Antarctic Survey in 1988.

At the Arctic Centre, Moore began as a special
researcher in 1993. He has also worked as a visiting professor at the Polar Research
Institute of China and was a visiting researcher at Beijing University for almost
ten years.

Moore has studied the
mechanisms of the climate system, sea-level changes and ice cover. He has done
geophysical fieldwork around the world and developed geoengineering scenarios.
He has studied the effects of
climate change on the Antarctic ice sheet, Svalbard, Greenland, Tibet, and
China.

– As a
research location, Antarctica is definitely the best of all. Three months in a tent,
with another scientist. That is real life, says Moore, who learned to ski in
Antarctica.

In the world of scientists and adventurers, Moore’s
role models include American astronomer Carl Sagan and Norwegian explorer Fridtjof
Nansen.

Some of the
places where Moore has done fieldwork no longer exist. The ice, which had remained
stable for thousands of years, has begun to melt into the ocean, drop by drop.
Places that used to be associated with adventure are turning into scenes of
tragedy.

The annual melting rate of the
Greenland ice sheet has risen from around 35 billion to 215 billion tonnes, from 30
billion to 147 billion tonnes in Antarctica.

Moore would like to slow down melting with
geoengineering. This will give mankind more time to combat climate change. According
to Moore, an effective way would be
to prevent warm water from flowing to the glaciers by building berms. This could
give the coastal areas up to a few centuries of additional time to prepare for
rising sea levels.

Russian permafrost is a ticking time bomb.
1400-1600 billion tonnes of methane have been stored in permafrost. In the seabed,
the amount is about twice as high. According to Moore, the release of methane into
the atmosphere will be the tipping point for mankind. When this happens, we will
have lost the game.

Mankind must take responsibility for its actions and
not behave like a drunk driver on the road.

Together with his colleagues, Moore has been
modelling for decades the ways climate change increases the incidence of extreme
weather events around the world. A recent example is the forest fires in Canada and
Siberia, which will most likely become more common as climate change
progresses.

Although
Moore has stared the more serious consequences of climate change in the eye, he is
optimistic. Moore believes that
humanity already holds all the keys to combatting climate change.

Moore notes that there is no
other institute than the Arctic Centre that has combined multidisciplinary Arctic
research of international significance so successfully. Yet Moore would like the
researchers to get better funding and raise their profile. 

– The Arctic Centre has a higher profile abroad than at
home. The world knows that if you need Arctic experts, they can call
us.

Moore
says that he wants to increase cooperation with Russian permafrost researchers in
the future. He knows a pair of researchers, father, and son, who have studied in
Eastern Siberia for twenty-five years to find ways to slow down the thawing of
permafrost.

The most
important thing is to note that the situation is not entirely hopeless. Most people,
especially young people, are well aware of what is happening. Climate change needs
to be studied at the regional level and divided into smaller parts. We need to seek
solutions piece by piece.

Text and photo: Johannes Roviomaa