Over the past year as a result of my increased writing load, I have been exposed to more and more types of science, and facts that simply blow me away. One of the topics that has come to be a favorite of mine, not only as a topic of interest, but in relation to how it affects other issues such as global warming, are the patterns by which the oceans travel.

Reports of rubber ducks making worldwide pilgrimages, under-ocean currents, and the dissolution of the Northwest Passage have all struck me as fascinating. Whether you believe in a world created by God, or as simply the product of an accident, there is no doubt that our world is a fascinating one.

So I was pleasantly surprised when I read today that China’s air is making its way all to Norway, within the Arctic Circle. Now it’s not as if I thought air was a centralized system that obeyed the geographical borders we impose on ourselves. But I had never really considered that air patterns would be very similar to their wet cousins.

Zeppelin Mountain, in the snow peaks of Norway, finds Kim Holmen, research director of the Norwegian Polar Institute, testing the air for tiny chemical traces. These traces include chemicals from factories in Russia — some thousand kilometers away — pesticides from Israel, and traces of pollution from China’s coal-fired power plants.

"Some days we can definitely tell that the air has come from China," said Kim Holmen from atop the research station, looking out over the picturesque views of fjords, mountains and glaciers of Spitsbergen Island.

"Most of the particles we see come from Europe and Russia," Holmen said of measurements gathered from atop Mount Zeppelin, reached by a cable car. "About 20 percent are from elsewhere."

However, at something close to 1,200 kilometers from the North Pole, and those thousand kilometers from the nearest towns in Russia and Norway, greenhouse gases are rising and pollutants are building up. Thankfully though, pollutants that were once the cause of acid rains and linked to cancer, are not as common thanks to the clean air laws that are slowly being put in place worldwide.

But the fact remains that the air is degrading by the year. The Arctic actually suffers from pollution haze during its springtime, and it has thickened over the past two decades, possibly as a result of forest fires. For those who are willing to jump on the "forest fires" as the cause, and dismiss human intervention, think again. These forest fires are more than likely caused by climate change, allowing for once verdant forests to be further susceptible to fires (Yes, they are made of wood, but what sparks a fire? A wet tree doesn’t!).

By testing air bubbles trapped in ice as a gauge, we can relatively firmly say that the greenhouse gases we are pumping in to the atmosphere have brought the level to a height that hasn’t been seen in well over 650,000 years.

The industrial revolution of the 18th century ushered in a new breed of humans or, more to the point, allowed the same breed of humans a higher grasp of technology to continue contaminating the world around them. Carbon dioxide levels have reached approximately 390 parts per million, compared to the 270 ppm recorded prior to the industrial revolution.

Granted, the greenhouse gases are not thickening the ghoulish haze across the Arctic. Until 6 or 8 years ago, the haze had petered off, but it has once again thickened over time, and confused scientists in the process.

"This is probably because of an increase in forest fires due to climate change. There are more fires in Siberia and North America and these bring more soot into the atmosphere," said Lars Otto Reiersen, head of the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program in Oslo.

Holmen has been trying to improve the accuracy of the testing, and has noted that the nearest town of Ny Alesund in the valley below has complicated matters. He had even tried to initiate a ban on smoking but, as he says, "Nobody seemed to like that idea."

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Photo courtesy of Norwegian Institute for Air Research