The researchers were startled to find bears having to swim up to 60 miles across open sea to find food. They are being forced into the long voyages because the ice floes from which they feed are melting, becoming smaller and drifting farther apart.
quote:
In Hudson Bay, Canada, the site of the most southerly polar bears, a study by the US Geological Survey (USGS) and the Canadian Wildlife Service to be published next year will show the population fell 22% from 1,194 in 1987 to 935 last year.
New evidence from field researchers working for the World Wildlife Fund in Yakutia, on the northeast coast of Russia, has also shown the region’s first evidence of cannibalism among bears competing for food supplies.
quote:
However, last summer the ice cap receded about 200 miles further north than the average of two decades ago, forcing the bears to undertake far longer voyages between floes.
I just don't see how global warming is considered a junk science? It's obvious that the climate is getting warmer.... I wonder if the scientists that argue it's a junk science are the same ones that support inteligent design.
Ogi
Posts: 153 | Location: Fremont, CA | Registered: 09-29-05
But we all know that Polar Bears live way up north and that doesn't affect the rest of the world.
As scary a thought as that may seem (people so clueless about the interconnectedness of all things) many do not equate those far distant places with here.
Just to see if people will wake up to the threat - you would be amazed at how many explain it all away and do not worry over it.
It is considered a junk science because there are not enough people in the world who see these things and think them to be extraordinary enough to seriously talk and consider the long term consequences. Each of those sites above are painting a horrible picture – one of an immediate (in the relative sense) disaster of Biblical Proportions – such a notion is unacceptable and it is far easier to downplay, ignore or deny the trend.
Granted we can still say “It may be just nature” yet the implications of “just nature doing regular house cleaning” is still lost on the many. Our world is doomed (world as in our civilization, as in the Roman World was doomed) and no many people want to hear that.
Posts: 3885 | Location: Leaving land, heading for the ocean | Registered: 06-03-02
How about the reports that the polar ice cap is melting?
Well, yes it is. In fact, it has been for about a million years or so. We are at the end of the ice age in which ice covered most of North American and Northern Europe.
There's at least one environmentalist, named Al Gore, who is panicking over the possibility that we may soon lose Glacier National Park in Montana because the ice is melting.
One hates to tell him that we've already lost the glacier that used to cover the whole country
Posts: 3165 | Location: From the Mountains to the Sea. | Registered: 06-08-02
According to the new research, four bear carcases were found floating in one month in a single patch of sea off the north coast of Alaska, where average summer temperatures have increased by 2-3C degrees since 1950s.
all right, so the ocean is getting warmer, but what about the average temperatures (not water), is going up?
Ogi
Posts: 153 | Location: Fremont, CA | Registered: 09-29-05
An area of the Western Antarctic Ice Sheet was observed to be thickening in 2002.
'"The ice sheet has been retreating for the last few thousand years, but we think the end of this retreat has come," says Dr Joughin. But he said it would be a mistake to assume any threat of the ice sheet collapsing was completely removed.
"Some of the concern about the collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is lessened, but I hesitate to say we can stop worrying about it."
He said the research only covered a relatively small area, over a short period of time and it was possible that what they were detecting was a minor fluctuation.
He pointed out that there were other areas in West Antarctica where the ice was thinning significantly, such as the Pine Island Glacier and the Thwaites Glacier.
Dr Duncan Whingam, of University College London, UK, who is studying these glaciers, said the new research was "very interesting" and illustrated how the picture regarding the ice in West Antarctica was becoming "increasingly complex".'news.bbc.co.uk
In 2005, the interior of Antarctica was noted to be thickening - rising temperatures leading to increased snowfall. Greenland is warmer, and increased temperatures lead to increased melt.
'The ice sheet covering the interior of Antarctica is thickening, researchers report in the journal Science. This bulge, which was recorded by satellite, may temporarily buffer rising sea levels, they believe.
Antarctica's "weight gain" is due to extra snowfall, caused by rising temperatures, the US-UK team thinks.
However, the scientists worry the overall mass of the Antarctic may be decreasing because ice near the coasts is melting, possibly at a greater rate.'news.bbc.co.uk
"Isn't the Antarctic ice sheet (other end of the globs) growing thicker?"
Somewhere on AP, I posted a few links stating that the ice shelf there is getting smaller. I assume that would mean that the ice is retreating rather than getting thicker. ---
Of course, after I posted this I read the post after Fuse's.
Global warming can cause seemingly contradictory effects. One of them is a colder Northern Europe, due to a change in the various currents emanating from the Arctic Ocean. The evidence that global warming is happening is overwhelming. The real question is how much man's activities is causing. Whatever is said, thinning the ozone layer, creating thousands of concrete heat islands, and emiting heat from million and millions of sources that didn't exist a century ago cannot be good for the ecological balance of things. What most people fail to understand is that people can exist in only a small 'window' of average global temperatures. More than a few degrees difference either way makes earth a very unlikely place to host a few billion people.
Posts: 16596 | Location: Lincoln Place, Granite City, IL, USA | Registered: 06-03-02
As for ozone depletion, my recollection is that the largest measurement of the ozone "hole" before the 1990s was taken just before the introduction of CFCs, 60 years prior. In the 90s the Mount Penitubo eruption was likely responsible for the majority of damage. Volcanos emit chlorine, the primary ozone depleter, at a rate that makes man-made chemicals nearly inconsequential.
Posts: 7614 | Location: in the backwoods of North Carolina | Registered: 06-07-02
