In the parable of the blind men and the elephant, the identity of the beast must be determined by touch and conjecture. The first person touches the trunk and says, “This being is like a thick snake.” Another person touches an ear, and it seems like a fan. The leg reminds the toucher of a tree trunk. The side of the elephant feels like a wall, the tail a rope, and the tusk smooth like a spear.
Atmospheric scientists, terrestrial ecologists, and oceanographers went to the Arctic blinkered by their areas of expertise. Like the blind men, the scientists cannot see the whole.
The first group sees the atmosphere warming the ocean’s surface. They measured rising air temperatures and summer sea ice retreat over the Arctic Ocean from mostly covering the ocean to less than a third coverage. Based on their data, they were surprised to see more than the calculated summer sea ice melt. With open water looking darker than sea ice, they said it’s like the temperature difference between a black car seat and a white seat on a sunny day, known as the Albedo effect.
The terrestrial ecologists see sunlight passing through the snowpack to warm the ground below. Insulated by snow, frost touching the earth melts away, leaving a few inches of air space. This subnivean space is occupied by breeding mice, voles, lemmings, and shrews, safe from…
