Naming the source

Purpose Statement:

The sea ice in the Arctic plays an important part in regulating the Earth's overall temperature. By reflecting back the energy from the Sun, the ice helps to lower the overall temperature of the Earth. If this ice was to disappear, the Earth would end up reflecting less of the Sun's energy back and hence would warm up the planet. This would in turn cause land ice to melt and would raise the overall sea level.

People who live in low lying areas are concerned about the rise of sea levels as they are worried about their homes flooding. “Even a modest rise in sea levels could cause flooding problems for low-lying coastal areas.”¹

I am going to forecast the amount of sea ice in the Arctic over the period Jan 2018 - Dec 2019 in the National Snow and Ice Centre Dataset. I will use my forecasts for Arctic sea ice to make an inference about sea levels in the Pacific Ocean and its effects on the flooding of coastal areas in Pacific Islands.

1. http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-science/global-warming4.htm

Data

• The variable that I will be using in this data is Arctic.

• This is the monthly surface area of sea ice in the Arctic Circle which is measured in millions of square kilometres.

The data used in this investigation is from the National Snow and Ice Data Center from 1990 - 2011.