It has come to the knowledge that the Calvert Socially Responsible Investing has decided to support and funding an innovative research on Polar Ice under the command of Dr. David M. Holland, Director of New York University’s Institute’s Center for Atmosphere-Ocean Science.

It has been stated, that global warming has by and large become the most potent danger in the melting of polar ice. If such ice is land-based, as it is in Antarctica and Greenland, it will cause sea levels to rise and thus endanger the international climate. Significant land-based polar ice melting carries perhaps the greatest danger in the recorded history. It also inflicts enormous economic and social risks as entire cities could become inundated and coastal populations would face relocation.
However, there has been little direct observation of the actual physical process of melting land-based polar ice. Prominent among the competing theories is that such ice may melt faster than expected because the warm ocean waters trim down the friction between ice sheets and the land’s surface. For bolstering scientists’ ability to predict the pace and manner of this aspect of climate change, Calvert has recently donated $25,000 to help fund the research project in Greenland with its central focus on investigating this critical scientific problem.

Dr. David M. Holland, has organized an expedition and will be heading the team to Greenland’s Jakobshavn Fjord, where his team will deploy a remotely controlled “autonomous underwater vehicle” (a fancy name for an unmanned submarine) intending to collect data through the use of radio-transmitter release floats. As has been stated, the team will also install a weather station for remote monitoring via satellite. The data gathered in this manner will enable Dr. Holland to apply mathematical and computational techniques while developing models to help further the understanding of this critical phenomenon.

Calvert intends and decides to fund this research as a way to demonstrate the commitment to address the complex and urgent issue of climate change. It has been learnt, that the research is exploratory and will require multi-year observations in order to provide the data for the computer models needed to simulate an evolving glacier-ocean system. It is expected to offer outreach components to both the scientific community and the public.