Before the research papers of the IPY's scientists are published, for those living on the southern polar cap, climate change is already palpable.
Lim admits that the recent loss of both the Mars Polar Lander and Mars Climate Orbiter may have affected favourable public opinion, which is what the project needs most if the dream of seeing astronauts on the Red Planet is ever to be realised.
"We will continue to work with our partners to reduce the pressure that trade in polar bear parts puts on this iconic arctic species, even as we take on the longer term threat that climate change poses to polar bears, " he said.
The U.S. says that shrinking Arctic ice habitat, a product of a warming climate, puts polar bear populations in a precarious position.
"Climate change in polar regions is expected to be among the greatest of any region on the Earth, and it will cause major physical, ecological, sociological and economic impacts, " Dr Toepfer said.
"Before, we could hardly make out dunes there, " said Rich Zurek, project scientist for the Mars Climate Orbiter and Mars Polar Lander, set to arrive at the planet in September and December, respectively.
Faced with melting polar ice caps and worsening droughts, climate experts at a massive U.N. conference in Bali, Indonesia, urged quick action toward a new international pact that seeks to stem an increasingly destructive rise in world temperatures.
Information on Arctic Ice research can be found at The International Arctic Climate System Study, a global consortium of polar scientists.
Instead, they present sensational statements and dramatic images that leave lasting impressions of calving glaciers, drowning polar bears and all manner of other man-caused climate calamities.
When we think about climate change, we are no longer thinking about polar bears stranded on melting ice caps.
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Esa member-states considered its polar ice measurements to be so important to the assessment of climate change that they approved the construction of a facsimile spacecraft within months of the accident.
"The American government is using the threat of climate change to justify banning the international trade in polar bear parts while utterly failing to do anything to reduce their own activities, " said James Eetoolook of the Nunavut Tunngavik, a group that represents Inuit interests.
It is a safe bet this spectacular propaganda endeavor will feature prominently polar bears who will be described as endangered species due to the impact of climate change on their ever-less icy habitat.
The 2007 U.N. report, published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, suggested that similar amounts of ice were being lost at both the polar regions.
"Even though they seem far away, changes in the polar regions could have an impact on both hemispheres, with sea level rise and changes in climate patterns, " he said.
He is impressed by everything there that is overarching, awe-inspiring, intimidating, overpowering, crushingly colossal, or incomprehensibly strange, and his crabby, self-righteous misanthropy, which comes through in every frame, rises to apocalyptic dimensions: learning of the perils to polar ice caps posed by global warming, he foresees with barely repressed glee the extinction of humanity through climate change.
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