Preserve the Polar Regions and glaciers. The Polar Regions both share a number of characteristics: low temperatures, darkness that lasts for several weeks or months in winter and enormous expanses of ice... However, they are two totally different regions as the Arctic is an ocean surrounded by land and Antarctica is a continent surrounded by an ocean. The Polar Regions play several key roles on a global scale: archives of the Earth, regulators of the Earth s heat balance, early warning system with regards to climate change (they are the regions where the effects of climate change are the most visible). Temperatures in the Arctic have increased twice as much as the world average over the past 100 years. The consequences of this are multiple: - important decrease of the sea ice s surface area and thickness - mass loss from the ice sheet over Greenland - melting of the permafrost The impacts of climate change are also apparent in the Antarctic Peninsula where the disintegration or break-up of some of the large ice shelves such as the Larsen B (2002) or the Wilkins (2008) has occurred. Over the past 100 years, and particularly since the 1980s, glaciers have been retreating all over the world. Shrinkage of glaciers is expected to continue with projected increases in global air temperatures. At first, melting will provide additional water to rivers and increase the risk of flooding. On the medium term, freshwater supplies should decrease significantly. By the end of this century, global temperatures are expected to rise between 1.1 degree C and 6.4 degrees C. Scientists are predicting that we may see summer sea ice cover in the Arctic disappear completely sometime between 2013 and 2040 (depending on the projections). Additionally, the melting of land ice (ice caps, ice sheets and glaciers) will lead to sea level rise and the impacts of climate change in the Polar Regions and on glaciers will have consequences across the world. Recent forecasts indicate that sea levels could rise one metre by 2100. Coastal communities living along deltas are expected to face increasing impacts such as flooding and coastal erosion.
		Produced by DAVO Philatelic Publishers, Netherlands Design: Birza Design BNO, Deventer (The Netherlands) Text: International Polar Foundation, Brussels (Belgium).