Saturday we talked about how global warming may be negatively impacting species around the world. Here's a story from the New York Times (log in required - but free) about how regional cooling in Antarctica may be threatening a species of nematode. Since Antarctica is such a cold and barren place, it's fairly easy for scientists to study exactly how each species contributes to the carbon cycle in the region. Turns out this tiny little critter is responsible for 10 percent of the carbon processed in the Dry Valleys soil ecosystem.

So what in the world does this have to do with global warming? I guess I could see it one of two ways. The skeptic in me wants to point to this and say, "Aren't the most significant temperature changes supposed to occur in the Upper Latitudes? Why is it cooling in this part of Antarctica?" And the other part of me says "It's a regional effect, and it's impossible to infer anything about the global climate from a regional effect."

Interesting research is being done on Arctic clouds in Nunavut Territory in the far northern reaches of Canada. Turns out, the clouds contain more super-cooled liquid water in them than had been previously thought. That is important because it affects how much radiation is reflected, absorbed and transmitted by the clouds. Also, as Taneil Uttal, chief of the Clouds and Arctic Reasearch Group at the Earth Systems Research Laboratory of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said:

"It's a new science, driven by the fact that everybody doing climate predictions says that clouds are perhaps the single greatest unknown factor in understanding global warming."

The article also describes the impact that warming which has already occurred is having in Nunavut and other Arctic regions.