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The effects of rapid environmental change on the climate, lands, oceans,
and ecosystems in the Arctic and Antarctic are increasingly apparent, and may be a harbinger for lower latitudes. Marine animals are being threatened by a decrease in the extent and thickness of Arctic sea ice. Thawing permafrost soils are devastating Native communities. Persistent organic pollutants are accumulating in Arctic food webs. In Antarctica, some ice shelves are retreating and glacial movement is accelerating.
View Kaitlin Keegan, a Dartmouth graduate student in engineering and an IGERT Associate in Polar Environmental Change, talking about ice cores in Greenland on MSNBC Nightly News.
The Institute of Arctic Studies at the Dickey Center has identified climate change and its influence on the social, cultural, and political dimensions of the North as an area of critical importance to the world. Since its founding in 1989, the Institute has been a
 leader in polar studies and an important advocate for addressing the reasons and consequences of arctic climate change. The Dickey Center is committed to interdisciplinary study of these issues in the hope that this will benefit northern people, increase international understanding, and promote global environmental stewardship.
The Institute sponsors interdisciplinary seminars and public events that highlight the importance of polar regions and global ecosystems in world affairs, and assists undergraduate students and faculty research related to arctic issues. In 2008, the Institute was awarded a five-year Integrative Graduate Education, Research and Training (IGERT) grant by the National Science Foundation to train a new generation of Ph.D. scientists and engineers in Polar Environmental Change. Dartmouth's strong ties to Greenlandic institutions and Inuit leaders gives us a unique teaching and learning perspective on the effects of climate change on all aspects of life in the arctic.
 The Institute's Northern and Polar Studies Initiative links Dartmouth faculty from Dartmouth College and Dartmouth's professional schools with colleagues at the U. S. Cold Regions Research and Engineering Lab to develop programs that promote scholarship and engage students in the social, political and scientific issues of high latitude regions. This initiative expands the Arctic vision of the Institute to more broadly include Canada, the Nordic countries, Russia and Antarctica.
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