Climate Change
Today none can venture north enough to escape the effects of global warming as the Arctic has heated up twice as fast as any other region over the past 50 years. A 2004 study assessing climate change in the Arctic found that land-based ice, glaciers, ice sheets, permafrost and floating ice are vanishing in an ongoing thaw. Between 1961 and 1997 over 890 cubic metres has been lost (980 trillion gallons of water).
If we ignore the change in Arctic climate, not just polar bears and natives will be suffering, but our children and grandchildren may pay the price. The Arctic is critical to the world's climate, as it is the key to the heat pump (a system when ocean currents regulate heat throughout the world). Not only this, but the more ice lost the faster the process becomes as ice, like a mirror, bounces sunlight back into space while water and soil absorb some of the heat, melting more ice and revealing more water or soil and so on.
Over the past years climate change has had a devastating effect on the environment. Study shows that the Arctic should be cooling each year but due to green house gas emissions overpowering natural climate patterns this is no longer the case. The good side is that we won't have another ice age, but the bad side is that many species will become extinct which will likely include us. Scientist have found that polar bears have been forced to swim 60 miles to find food due to the ice floes, from which they hunt, melting, becoming smaller and drifting apart. This leaves them exhausted and causes them to be swamped and drowned by waves. But not only the bears are being affected!
As the Arctic warms lichens and other tundra plants favoured by caribou and reindeer are slowly being replaced by shrubs and trees which are moving northwards as the Arctic warms. More southerly animals such as deer are invading caribou territory and bringing diseases such as brain worm which is harmless to deer but fatal to caribou. As moose arrive wolf packs follow and though large moose are sometimes successful at driving off wolves caribou on the other hand are not. Industrial development is shrinking the size and quality of areas caribou can migrate to when stressed by hunting and climate change. Herds have gone from 472,000 in 1986 to 32,000 today because of all these factors and more. We are invaders!!
If we ignore the change in Arctic climate, not just polar bears and natives will be suffering, but our children and grandchildren may pay the price. The Arctic is critical to the world's climate, as it is the key to the heat pump (a system when ocean currents regulate heat throughout the world). Not only this, but the more ice lost the faster the process becomes as ice, like a mirror, bounces sunlight back into space while water and soil absorb some of the heat, melting more ice and revealing more water or soil and so on.
Over the past years climate change has had a devastating effect on the environment. Study shows that the Arctic should be cooling each year but due to green house gas emissions overpowering natural climate patterns this is no longer the case. The good side is that we won't have another ice age, but the bad side is that many species will become extinct which will likely include us. Scientist have found that polar bears have been forced to swim 60 miles to find food due to the ice floes, from which they hunt, melting, becoming smaller and drifting apart. This leaves them exhausted and causes them to be swamped and drowned by waves. But not only the bears are being affected!
As the Arctic warms lichens and other tundra plants favoured by caribou and reindeer are slowly being replaced by shrubs and trees which are moving northwards as the Arctic warms. More southerly animals such as deer are invading caribou territory and bringing diseases such as brain worm which is harmless to deer but fatal to caribou. As moose arrive wolf packs follow and though large moose are sometimes successful at driving off wolves caribou on the other hand are not. Industrial development is shrinking the size and quality of areas caribou can migrate to when stressed by hunting and climate change. Herds have gone from 472,000 in 1986 to 32,000 today because of all these factors and more. We are invaders!!