When Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" was released in theaters earlier this year, it was met with praise from critics and the scientific community and indifference from the White House.
The movie has brought a lot of attention to global warming and its effects on Earth, but, as with any media frenzy, the hubbub will eventually die down, and Paris Hilton's next DUI will make front pages across America.
But serious scientists and meteorology scholars understand that global warming was an issue before Gore jumped on his soapbox, and it will continue to be important in the years to come.
Mark Anderson has been interested in climate change since his college days at the University of Colorado-Boulder in the early 1980s.
Anderson is an associate professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and when he's not teaching class, he's busy trying to make sense of the climate changes occurring in the Arctic and what kinds of long-term effects they could have on the planet as a whole.
In May 2004, Anderson received a $225,000 grant from NASA to research the melting of sea ice in the Arctic.
"It's an indicator of climate change," Anderson said. "The results we're getting show that the ice is melting earlier and the season is ending later."
As temperatures get warmer, the amount of sea ice that refreezes each fall is falling at a rate of about 8 percent a decade.
One of the important characteristics of sea ice is that because of its white appearance, it doesn't absorb as much of the energy coming from space as in other parts of the world. Rather, it reflects that energy back into space.
As the amount of surface sea ice decreases, less of that energy is being deflected, and that change makes for warmer temperatures in the arctic region.
Anderson said his research is in the early stages of development and it's impossible to predict what these climate changes will mean in the long term. He said it's obvious that rapid changes are taking place and that they will have noticeable effects on Earth's climate.
"If you have an iceless polar region, you'll have warmer temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere in the wintertime," Anderson said.
Arctic blasts that bring temperatures below zero can become less common when these conditions are present, and desert-like conditions that are prominent in places like Arizona and New Mexico could creep northward into the Great Plains.
While it's difficult to predict what the change in temperatures will bring in the near future, there are a lot of possible positives and negatives to warmer temperatures in the Arctic region, said Walt Meier, a research scientist with the National Snow and Ice Data Center at UC-Boulder.
"Ice cools temperatures at night a lot quicker than water, so temperatures will rise in that fashion," Meier said. "It could affect wildlife, too. Polar bears need sea ice to help provide food, so they could possibly become extinct."
The lifestyles of native northern tribes would change, and transportation routes could open up, making it easier for mining and oil companies to travel through areas previously unreachable, Meier said.
Anderson said he understands that a lot of people might not pay attention to the type of research that he's doing, but that the results can help the scientific community find a better understanding of how the world will be shaped in the future.
"This stuff is as relevant as taking any English class," Anderson said. "It affects what clothes you're going to wear any given day. Just last week, when temperatures were warmer, there were all kind of jackets left in the hallways."
