Name: __________________________
Period: ____
Date: ____
Practicing with Outlines
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Prior to writing any essay you need to outline your ideas first.
Read the following articles about Antarctica and then answer the corresponding questions.
West Antarctica's Meltdown Weakens Earth's Gravity
West Antarctica's incredible weight loss can be felt from space, a new study reports.
So much ice has disappeared from West Antarctica in recent years that Earth's gravity is now weaker
there, researchers reported in the Aug. 28 issue of the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
Earth's gravity fluctuates in small ways that are caused by changes in mass. When hefty ice sheets
melt, there is less ice and thus less gravitational force pulling in that area.
DGFI / PLANETARY VISIONS
This graphic shows the changes in Earth's gravity field caused by West Antarctic ice loss, based on
data from the GOCE satellites. The satellites ended their mission in 2013 when the spacecraft ran out
of fuel, as planned, and broke apart during atmospheric re-entry.
The new results come partly from the European Space Agency's GOCE satellites, which are on a fouryear mission to map Earth's gravity in high resolution. The GOCE gravity map was combined with
gravity measurements recorded from the GRACE satellites, a U.S.-German mission that tracks
changes in Earth's ice sheets via gravity. Merging the information from both satellites allowed
researchers to measure West Antarctica's ice loss.
The satellites recorded a dip in Earth's gravity field due to extensive ice loss in West Antarctica. The
shrinking glaciers and ice shelves, whittled by warm ocean currents, tugged more gently when the
satellites sped by overhead. [Watch: Antarctic Ice Loss Causes Dip In Earth's Gravity]
Each space mission consists of two satellites orbiting near each other. Slight distance changes occur
between the satellites as they dip or rise over gravity highs and lows. Computers translate those
shifts, sometimes smaller than a hair's width, into an estimate of Earth's gravity field.
The precise measurements suggest West Antarctica shed some 209 billion metric tons (230 billion
tons) of ice each year between 2009 and 2012. This region of Antarctica may have passed a tipping
point into unstoppable collapse, according to studies published earlier this year.
The research team, led by Johannes Bouman from the German Geodetic Research Institute, now
plans to analyze ice loss from all of Antarctica, according to a statement from ESA.
— Becky Oskin, LiveScience
Arctic Is Heating Up Twice as Quickly as Rest of World
by Megan Gannon, News Editor | December 17, 2014 04:38pm ET
This graph shows that Arctic
temperature anomalies
(blue) continue to rise, even
at a time when warming
worldwide (red) slows down.
Credit: NOAA
Bad news for polar bears: The Arctic is still warming at twice the pace of the rest of the planet,
according to a new federal report.
Last year, air temperatures in the northernmost regions of the globe were, on average, 1.8 degrees
Fahrenheit (1 degree Celsius) higher than normal. Unusually warm years like 2014 have only become
more frequent in the Arctic in the past decade, even as the rate of temperature increase slowed for
the rest of the world.
In 2014, the Greenland Ice Sheet's heat-deflecting brightness hit a low; spring snow cover dwindled
to record lows in Eurasia; polar regions had a below-average extent of summer sea ice, and as for the
polar bears that depend on that ice to survive, some populations have declined, according to the
report. [See Stunning Photos of Earth's Vanishing Ice]
The findings are included in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association's (NOAA) annual
"Arctic Report Card," a comprehensive review of the North Pole's health that is assembled by more
than 60 scientists.
"Climate change is having a disproportionate effect on the Arctic," Craig MacLean, NOAA's acting
assistant administrator for the office of oceanic and atmospheric research, said in a news briefing
today (Dec. 17) at the 47th annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco. "For
the past 30 years, the Arctic has been getting greener, warmer and increasingly more accessible to
shipping, energy extraction and fishing."
A trend of warming
Unlike past report cards, this year's polar checkup didn't reveal any major broken records. But this
year's data fits in with the "persistent warming" trend that scientists have been observing in the
Arctic for more than three decades, said Jacqueline Richter-Menge, of the U.S. Army's Cold Regions
Research and Engineering Laboratory.
From October 2013 to September 2014, the average surface air temperature in the Arctic was 1.8
degrees F (1 degree C) above the 1981-2010 average. The amount of sea ice floating in the Arctic in
September 2014 was the sixth lowest since satellites began recording such data in 1979, the report
found. Though the Greenland Ice Sheet had essentially the same mass in 2014 as it did in 2013, its
reflectivity, or albedo, hit a record low in August. (Records only began for this effect in 2000.)
The Arctic warms at a higher rate than lower latitudes because of a well-documented effect known as
Arctic amplification of global warming, Richter-Menge told reporters. Arctic amplification is a selffeeding cycle. Because of their light color, sea ice and snow bouncs radiation from the sun back into
the atmosphere. But when more ice and snow melts, more of the dark-colored patches of earth and
ocean are exposed, locking more heat into the already-warming planet's surface.
Kinky jet streams and missing polar bears
Rising temperatures in the Arctic are thought to affect the rest of the planet. Some research has
suggested that warming around the North Pole can cause the typical path of the jet stream to go
haywire, though scientists have yet to reach a consensus. Without data for a long period of time, it's
difficult to tell whether this phenomenon is really a trend or part of the "normal chaos" of the
atmosphere, said James Overland, an oceanographer with NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental
Laboratory. Regardless of the cause, a wavy jet stream can have a huge influence on weather, the
report illustrates. For example, a twisted jet stream led to remarkable temperature spikes in Alaska in
January, when the region experienced temperatures as much as 18 degrees F (10 degrees C) higher
than normal.
This year's Arctic Report Card also included a special paper on polar bears that found the species has
experienced a major decline in Hudson Bay, Canada , because of sea-ice loss. (Bears use these
floating ice platforms to travel, hunt and look for mates.) The number of females in this region
dropped from 1,194 to 806 between the years 1987 and 2011.
But, the news was sunnier for polar bears in other regions. For example, the population of polar bears
in the Beaufort Sea, north of Alaska, declined by as much as 50 percent a decade ago. But now, the
population seems to have stabilized at about 900, according to the report.
Follow Megan Gannon on Twitter. Follow us @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on
Live Science.
Outlining an Essay

Outline the following essay topic below using information from the two articles you just read
about Antarctica.
Essay Topic
Throughout both articles, one of the main ideas is the effect global warming has on Antarctica’s
ecosystem. How has the melting ice caps affected not only Antarctica’s ecosystem, but the Earth
as a whole?
Introduction Outline
Hook
List background
information.
Reasons/Topics you are
Discussing
Thesis
Reason/Topic 1: ________________________________________________________
Direct Quote 1:
Direct Quote 2:
Explanation of Quote:
Explanation of Quote:
Reason/Topic 2: ________________________________________________________
Direct Quote 1:
Direct Quote 2:
Explanation of Quote:
Explanation of Quote:
Reason/Topic 3: ________________________________________________________
Direct Quote 1:
Direct Quote 2:
Explanation of Quote:
Explanation of Quote:
Here are some
transitional words and
phrases I will use in my
essay!