The Earth's Poles and Climate Change
ESA TV Exchanges
On 6 April 2007, the contribution of Working Group II to the ""Climate Change 2007"" assessment report of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) will be presented to the press in Brussels.
This is why ESA TV Service releases three new Exchanges on aspects of climate change and space - this is the first of the three stories:
The North and South Pole play a critical part in determining the Earths climate. This story looks at work by scientists from the Alfred-Wegener-Institute in Germany who collect ground data on snow and ice cover in the Arctic, to prepare for the Cryosat-2 mission.
The script is online as a PDF file under http://television.esa.int/photos/EbS51508.pdf
A WMV preview clip is online under http://esatv-movies.e-vision.nl/videos/mphi/POLAR_21-03-07_wmphigh.wmv

The Earthís Poles and Climate Change
A-Roll
10:00:40 Images of the north pole and scientists on the ground.
The North and South Pole play a critical part in determining the Earthís climate. Scientists from across the world are studying the Polar regions to scrutinise any changes and their potential effect on our future. In the next 18 months, Earthís high latitude regions are also high on the agenda as another International Polar Year begun on March the 1 st 2007.
10:01:03 Images of tropics then Graphic of sun reflecting of polar region.
Our planetís climate getís its heat from the sun mostly in the tropical and subtropical latitudes. This is partly balanced out by heat radiated back into space in the Polar regions, For this to work the energy must be transported from lower latitudes to higher latitudes either by the atmosphere or by ocean currents.
10:01:22 Ocean currents
This system of heat transportation is one of the main drivers of regional climate an