URI_Research_Magazine_Momentum_Fall_2017_Melissa-McCarthy

“Nowhere else on Earth is the atmosphere more directly connected to the deep ocean as at the poles.”

© Sarah Searson

Hurricane force katabatic winds blow off the Antarctic continent, pushing the ice away from land and opening a polynya.

At the opposite end of the world, Loose is examining how the warming climate is releasing methane – a more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide – from permafrost and from beneath the seafloor in the Arctic, a process that will speed up the warming of the climate. He is interested in how methane- eating microbes might slow the release of methane to the atmosphere.

“Once we have had the chance to synthesize and interpret our data, we’ll be able to estimate how much ice is produced in polynyas, something that models have been underestimating,” he says. “Even when other parts of the icepack are melting, polynyas are still producing ice because of the wind and the extreme heat loss coming from the open water.” At the opposite end of the world, Loose is examining how the warming climate is releasing methane – a more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide – from permafrost and from beneath the seafloor in the Arctic, a process that will speed up the warming of the climate. He is interested in how methane-eating microbes might slow the release of methane into the atmosphere. “The ocean is full of bacteria, which have adapted to consume whatever food source is available, and some consider methane to be food,”

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