Arctic Air Time

(CBS)

It's been three weeks since we returned from our Arctic adventure, and tonight the first in our series of stories will air on the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric. There are four parts in total, with the remainder airing tomorrow, Wednesday and Saturday nights. Do these stories aim to solve the severity of global warming? Of course not. They are meant to shed light on an important subject to us all -- climate change -- and how what happens in the Arctic is tied to those of us in the south. It's a journey to the top of the world.

Daniel's Arctic Expedition Travel Page

Our expedition was part of the International Polar Year (IPY), which is a world-wide effort to study both polar regions and better understand what's happening to our planet. Both areas are largely under-researched and yet vital to the body of knowledge. You can find out more about the IPY here. For climate change models or predictions to be accurate, more data is needed to help fill in the blanks. Climate change is typically measured on a century or millenia scale, so it can be tough to look just years or decades ahead. But scientists like the ones we followed are gathering as much information as possible.

Our first story looks at the Arctic itself, a breath-taking place most people never see up close. It also examines the reduction of Arctic ice. A recent study by the University of Illinois found the disappearance of floating sea ice in the Arctic this past summer to be the most rapid since satellite monitoring began in 1979. That can affect how much heat/light is reflected back into space. We'll explain. Plus there are the melting glaciers; all that additional water has to go somewhere, so the concern over the generations to come is a rising sea level.

Please tune in tonight.

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