WITH all the attention given to the loss of sea ice in the Arctic, it's easy to forget that some ice will persist for many years yet. True, climate models project that much of the Arctic Ocean will be ice-free in summer by 2040, but they also predict that half a million square kilometres of sea ice could remain until at least 2100.
This ice will lie next to the northern coasts of Greenland and the Canadian Arctic archipelago, the region where the oldest and thickest ice now occurs. This region will therefore offer at least a limited sanctuary for species that prefer, or rely on, year-round sea ice. Projections published in February indicate that by the middle of the century optimal polar bear habitat will have disappeared across most of the Arctic, but will persist north of the Canadian Arctic archipelago and Greenland.
Polar bear habitat will persist north of the Canadian Arctic archipelago and Greenland
The continued existence of this habitat lays the foundation for the long-term survival of ice-dependent species. But to ensure they do survive, we urgently need to draw up a management plan. As ice-covered areas open up, the Arctic will experience more human activity than ever before.
New developments in shipping, tourism and resource extraction, for example, will put pressure on ecosystems already struggling to adapt to environmental changes. We need to start an international assessment now, before Arctic countries establish their development schemes.
The management plan will have to extend to cover the "ice shed" that delivers ice to the region. Our research indicates that, in the past, some of the ice was formed locally, but some of it also drifted in from the central Arctic and as far away as the continental shelf waters of northern Alaska and north-eastern Russia. Even when most of the sea ice is gone in the summer, ice formed in the winter will be transported by wind and ocean currents into this region.
Because sea ice is dynamic, we will need an international system of monitoring and managing the remaining habitat and the areas that supply its ice. If we are able to do this successfully, we could maintain a viable habitat for polar bears and other species for decades into the future.
Read more: Plan to protect polar bears' icy habitat
Stephanie Pfirman is at Barnard College, Columbia University, New York
Bruno Tremblay is at McGill University in Montreal, Canada
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Have your say
The arctic varies greatly in its ability to support wildlife and humans. The bears won't be any better off if there is plenty of ice but no seals.
We really should do whatever it takes to save polar bears - they are so unique and beautiful.
I would feel comfortable judging the worth of humanity and the value of modern civilization by whether we make room for polar bears to live on Earth too, or grab everything for ourselves.
First it was ozone... skin cancer was predicted to increase 800%
Then it was Global Warming
Then it was Climate Change
Then it was sea levels - expected to drown a lot of people and animals.
And now it's the poor polar bears - expected to be wiped off earth - FOREVER!
Remember the Spotted Owl? Everyone claimed that loggers were destroying their habitant. So the loggers were put out of work, the "Old Growth" forests were saved.... AND guess what?
Yes, the Spotted owl population continued to nose dive after their habitant was "saved". What people didn't realize - it was the Barred Owl pushing the Spotted owl out.
The shrinking arctic ice has never been solidly confirmed. It may grow back, it may not. The ice model will prob not be any more accurate then the "climate models".
Just THINK about all that GREAT FISHING habitant that will be created if the arctic ice would PLEASE melt! And HOPE that the Arctic ice never returns - lest the new artic fish species get threatened!
Seems the operative word you use is "then", as if the "then" is in today's past.
FYI - skin cancer rates HAVE increased - and we have stopped ozone layer depletion due to the same group of scientists who are now working on the next problem area.
You can mince words on AGW vs. CC, same thing - and still happening.
Sea levels will climb. Gladly for you and me our lives may only see the start of the ravages that will cause - make Katrina look like a cakewalk.
And so... if I understand your misguided logic, if conservation was wrong once, might as well forego any other conservation efforts, because of course all converation ideas are wrong.
"AGW vs. CC, same thing" - WRONG!
CC is caused by both natural and anthropogenic forcings. One is a subset of the other - they are not the same thing.
Interesting input, thanks Tom...
I haven't kept up-to-date on the ozone issue... it's been pretty quiet for some years... I'm not aware the problem has been "solved". I better recheck.
Katrina is cakewalk compared to the coming sea level rise? Well... the seas have RISEN over FOUR HUNDRED FEET in 10,000 years. And man didn't even cause this... or did he?
We've already lost TWO THIRDS of Florida and nobody cares! If you ever studied the ocean floor topography off California... the sea were clearly 600 feet lower in the past eras.
IF ALL the polar ice were to melt, the seas will rise 200 ft. Yet the Antarcic ice hasn't melted in 400,000 years - even during past global warming epitodes.
The Puget Sound and Straits of Juan de Fuca was once a massive solid glacier. Today the area is teeming with fish life. Yes... the polar bears can't live there anymore. So? That's evolution - find somewhere to live, adapt or die.
The depletion of ozone by flurocarbons released into the atmosphere has recently turned around. Regulations were put in place from 1987 as a result of the Montreal Protocol.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreal_Protocol
The release of flurocarbons slowed and once the CFC based technologies reached the end of their life they were no longer released. They break down in a comparitively short time, halting the damage.
Unfortunately many people assume that if CO2 does ultimately prove to be the disaster predicted by scientists we can simply change our ways and the problem will go away.
But CO2 does not break down in the atmosphere. It is slowly sequestered back into the earth over geological time periods by processes such as the formation of limestone by coral reefs. Meanwhile it continues to trap heat year after year.
Skeptics also make the mistake of thinking since sea levels rise over thousands of years that human activity is irrelevant. However the increased rate caused by human activity means the changes will happen rapidly and there is considerable evidence that positive feedback mechanisms will result in runaway changes.
We will have to face changing our energy dependence one day and the sooner we address it the better our chances of avoiding disaster. The more time we can buy the better.
Personally I think it is all going to be too little too late and every year we contiue to increase emmission the sooner the crisis will be upon us. However I don't expect to see it in my lifetime and many skeptics will did comfortable in the presumption they were correct. But out grandchildren will hate us for what we have done.
Remember that half of the entire CO2 release since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution has occurred in the past thirty years and the rate of release increases every year. We are accelerating toward disaster.
"IF ALL the polar ice were to melt, the seas will rise 200 ft. Yet the Antarcic ice hasn't melted in 400,000 years - even during past global warming epitodes."
Within 2 to 3 decades we will be warmer than any time in the last several million years.
How much longer do you intend to lie about these matters BillieBoy?
Yeah, hopefully the antarctic melts as well. Surf's up!
"First it was ozone... skin cancer was predicted to increase 800%" - BillsAWageSlave
I remember that Ozone depletion denialists like you at the time claiming that banning CFC's would kill 1/3 of the worlds population and cost 100 trillion dollars.
Ozone depletion according to your kind was just a blatant attempt by the worlds scientists to steal money from Conservative American whiners.
Or so the Conservative American Whiners, whined.
What happened to your ilk's projections?
Have 2 billion people died prematurely because of the Montreal protocol and we haven't noticed?
And how come I haven't noticed that $100 trillion dollar price tag that was whined about?
Were your kind's predictions all lies?
"The shrinking arctic ice has never been solidly confirmed." - BillsAWageSlave
You mean last years ice pack wasn't the third smallest in recorded history? And the year before the second smallest, and the year before the smallest ever recorded?
Those damn scientists, they are out to steal your money again.
How much longer do you plan on telling bald faced lies? BillieBoy.
Temporary Respite?
Fri Oct 30 20:03:21 GMT 2009 by sciencebod
http://www.colinb-sciencebuzz.blogspot.com
Arctic ice is everyone's backyard, at least in the Northern hemisphere, and ought to be the subject of closer monitoring. It's pathetic that TV -tracked adventurers are still sticking glorified classroom rulers down into the ice to measure its thickness!
With all the conflicting claims about global warming or cooling, Arctic melting or refreezing, it's high time there was a coordinated effort to establish proper timelines and cause -and -effect relationships.
We've recently had claims that global warming has stopped, based purely on there having been no single year as warm as 1998 (despite the fact that all the years since 2000 to 2008 have been in the top 14 years on record, according to the Met Office).
An hypothesis that needs urgently investigated is that the pause in runaway global warming, if that's what it is, is due to Arctic ice melting.
Melting ice could have effects on global weather well beyond the Arctic. Melted ice is cool fresh low-density water, SG of 1. It would tend to drift off towards mid-latitudes on top of sea water, SG 1.1 ie skidding over the ocean surface, at least during non-stormy spells, creating masses of low-level cool air. I have personal experience of the phenomenon, having sailed back from the New York aboard the "France" in 1972. It had to divert way off usual course (passing a similarly diverted QE2 in the opposite direction ) due to icebergs coming much further south than usual. Not surprisingly, it was one of those "failed -summers" in the UK, failing to benefit from the usual warm Gulf Stream!
In other words - Arctic ice is just a temporary buffer. We - and the polar bears - may be living on borrowed time!
Temperature readings from around the world tell us there has been no increase in temperature for 11 years. The average temperature of the Earth has been going down for the last 8 years. But you will never see this on any news program, read it in any newspaper or hear it on any radio show. There are five institutions that track global temperature: The Hadley Centre in England, the Goddard Institute for Space Studies at NASA, the Remote Sensing Systems of California, the University of Alabama at Huntsville and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). All of these centres show no warming for 11 years and all show the temperature falling for the last 8 years at varying degrees.
Temporary Respite?
Sat Oct 31 00:40:12 GMT 2009 by sciencebod
http://www.colinb-sciencebuzz.blogspot.com
There has been no increase since the peak year of 1998, that I grant you (just for the record ;-).
But if one's looking at trends, one doesn't take peak values as one's reference. It betrays a lack of statistical literacy! Peak values are outliers. Outliers are freak values. 1998 was an exceptional year - with temperatures way above the expected value from extrapolating the existing trend. Blame El Nino !
If you look at the trend from the middle of the last century to the present, it's generally upwards, with a few dips along the way. 1998 was a sizeable blip - upwards - not downwards. The majority of scientists, accustomed to noise v signal - would look at the data and tell you the trend was still upwards. As the Met Office has pointed out, as well as an earlier comment, one can confidently predict that data points in future years will fall on or above the trend line. Why? Because CO2 is still rising, and it's the only known factor that can explain rising temperatures - other ones ( solar cycles, orbital wobble, cosmic rays etc) having been investigated and discounted.
Nope, there's no absolute proof that it's CO2, but science works by falsification - not proof. And it predicts - admittedly not next year's temperatures and weather, that's asking too much in the case of climate - but the next decade. Future temperatures WILL rise due to AGW, assuming no one's placed a bunsen under planet Earth... Wait and see if you wish - but I for one will be economising on power where possible, hoping my grandchildren do not remember me as someone totally irresponsible and self- centred...
Very true, sciencebod.
Also, we got to remember, many of these graphs claiming global warming, are "anchored" with a cold period on the left side of the graph... thus skewing the graph to make it look like a warming trend.
Even Vendicar's oft-repeated post of a NASA graph showing a warming trend with a ".8529209" correlation was basically a "very flat level graph" showing virtually no change
"Temperature readings from around the world tell us there has been no increase in temperature for 11 years." - record
Which is of course a complete lie.
1999 14.33 **********===o
2000 14.33 **********====o
2001 14.48 ***************o*****
2002 14.56 ****************o*********
2003 14.55 *****************o*******
2004 14.49 ******************o**
2005 14.62 *******************o**********
2006 14.54 ********************o****
2007 14.56 *********************o*****
2008 14.44 ******************====o
2009 14.56 ***********************o*
---------------------------> Temperature
"*" = Data
"=" = Left space
"o" = Trend
2009 temps projected
View with mono-spaced font
"The average temperature of the Earth has been going down for the last 8 years." - Record
I have never encountered a conservative who wasn't a perpetual and congential liar.
"But you will never see this on any news program" - Record
Legitimate news media don't report lies like yours. Faux news does. But then it exists for the express purpose of promoting conservative lies.
"The Hadley Centre in England, the Goddard Institute for Space Studies at NASA, the Remote Sensing Systems of California, the University of Alabama at Huntsville and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). All of these centres show no warming for 11 years and all show the temperature falling for the last 8 years at varying degrees."
The following NOAA plot shows you to be a liar.
http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/globalwarming/ar4-fig-3-17.gif
So how much longer do you intend to continue to lie about the facts?
Look VERY closely at the graph... notice that the graph spans TEN years and shows a mere 0.23 degree C change?
14 degree C is 284 degrees above absolute zero.
0.23 divided by 284 is .0008099 or 0.1 percent.
Virtually all parts of the world experience daily, temperature changes up to 4 percent, with little effect on animal life. It's even more extreme if one considers annual temperature changes.
Try plotting this graph yourself on an absolute scale. Notice how tiny the change is?
Try plotting the graph on a Centigrade scale... with 0 degree Centigrade bottom line. It's still a very tiny variation.
Secondly, the noaa datea has some statistical problems that even the creator James Hansen admits that his data is inaccurate because too many of the recording stations are located near growing urban "heat islands".
Other graphs (also suspect) show the world is cooling.
No name calling please.
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