Sea Ice: Important To The Environment

The melting sea ice is also affecting the polar bear's main prey, seals, forcing the bears to turn to alternate, less nutritious food sources. Once sea ice forms in the winter, seals use the ice to create dens to give birth to their pups. In these months, polar bears use sea ice as their hunting grounds to find seal dens. Now that Seasonal Ice is forming later and melting earlier (IPCC, 2013), seals have less time to build dens and give birth. Consequently, polar bears have less time to hunt their preferred prey of seal pups. They must spend more time on land hunting other animals of less nutritional value. Organizations like Sea World Parks have reported male polar bears occasionally eating newly-born polar bear cubs because they cannot find other food to eat. Lack of nutritional food leads to a reduced body size. Polar bears are becoming thinner and weaker from not eating enough (Rode, Amstrup, & Regehr 2010). They have to swim longer distances to find ice to hunt upon, causing many cubs to die because they are not yet strong enough. In the Hudson Bay, the average polar bear weight has decreased by 15% and the population has decreased by 20% (National Wildlife Federation). In the summer when there is no ice, polar bears in the Hudson Bay go onto land to fast until the ice reforms. Now that ice is

Water from the falling ice fall into the ocean 10. In recent years humans have alerted 11. Climate change is different than daily weather

Kathy Conlan is an expert in understanding the weird and wonderful world of marine creatures that live deep under the Arctic ice. She specializes in marine benthic biology and amphipod systematics. Kathy studies how human and natural changes affect marine life in the Arctic and Antarctic, the effects of pollution on marine life as well as global warming. She is past chief officer for Life Sciences in the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) and is a judge for SCAR’s Martha T. Muse Prize for Science and policy in Antarctica, represents Canada for the Canadian Committee on Antarctic Research, taught at Huntsman Marine Science Centre and Students On Ice, mentors university students and gives speaches and “Show and tells” at the museum.

Have you ever wanted to spend months in temperatures that regularly are -30°? Many people cannot stand cold temperatures such as 32° even just for the couple minutes it takes while they are walking from their car to the store. In the story “Extreme Research Shows How Arctic Ice Is Dwindling” by Andy Isaacson he discusses how the arctic ice is dwindling, what will happen as a result of that and then finally about his trip where he was able to observe it all firsthand. The sea of ice is unlike how most people would imagine it to be as depicted on maps, instead it is not all connected but rather it is many different pieces all just floating near one another.

Glacier retreat will greatly affect polar and aquatic ecosystems and animals. Most arctic life revolves around the sea and presence of sea ice. Without the presence of ice, most ecosystems will be recreated. Polar bears are one species in great danger. Polar bears use sea ice as a birthing and hunting ground, and also use it to travel from one place to another. As glaciers start to disappear, the mother polar bear has less access to food; therefore, the chance of survival for her and her young is very slim. The polar bears chance of reproduction becomes less as the glaciers retreat. As the top of the food chain, their decline will cause negative effects for each level below them (Review Diagram G). The only way for polar bears to survive, is by

Sea ice is a vital breeding and nursing habitat for emperor penguins, where their colonies are formed far from the open sea. The breeding penguins, would then, go on scavenging trips throughout the entire development and chick nurturing stages. However, during the period with thick and wide sea ice cover, the trips become longer. Adult penguins would have to use up more energy for travel, which will result in lower offspring provisioning and hatching success (Barbraud & Weimerskirch, 2001, p. 185). Also, sea ice could influence the emperor penguin by “topdown processes”. Diminished sea ice could allow access to hunting areas of the emperor penguin by potential predators, such as killer whales (Jenouvrier et al., (2012), p. 2759). Consequently, there are no emperor penguin remains found in killer whale diets. Nevertheless, penguins that have used up so much energy (especially males after their 4 months fast) are vulnerable to other predators, which could result in a lower survival rate. This predicament is mainly caused by the change of variables called “sea ice concentration” and “sea ice

In the short story Lamb to the Slaughter written by Roald Dahl the author shows us a different perspective to violence that is rarely used. The protagonist of the story is not necessarily a hero. The author wants us to understand that just because someone is the protagonist doesn’t mean they can’t be violent. They don’t need any hard-core training or even a real weapon! Anyone and everyone has the capability of being violent.

The increasing global temperatures have caused many problems in Arctic ecosystems. The increasing warmth has caused ice caps to melt, and permafrost to thaw, causing shifts in the ecosystems around them. 1According to Harris (2005) “Permafrost is soil, rock or sediment that is frozen for more than two consecutive years. In areas not overlain by ice, it exists beneath a layer of soil, rock or sediment, which freezes and thaws annually and is called the "active layer".” (p. 17). While the melting of ice may not seem like a big issue at first glance, its effects are truly catastrophic. Many professionals in this field, such as Houghton (2009) have said 2“Warming is expected to be strongest in the Arctic, with the continuing retreat of

Arctic ice caps are melting, causing many animals to find either a new habitat or new food, which are both extremely challenging. For example, in Document A, sea lions

It contains an expanse of tundra with many marshes and lagoons with rivers situated between foothills of the Brooks Range and the wide, icy waters of the Beaufort Sea. Environmentalists said that this area “is the most biologically productive part of the Arctic Refuge for wildlife and is the center if wildlife activity.” The importance of these resources is not measurable. The Arctic is home to such animals as caribou, polar bears, grizzly bears, musk oxen, whales, wolves and snow geese. This area is full of wildflowers and contains water of excellent, unpolluted quality and quantity. The Arctic Ocean costal plain is an area critical to the survival of many birds and mammals (‘Alaska Wild’).

Organisms can live in harsh environments without being prone to danger. The Arctic includes the world's smallest ocean being the Arctic Ocean, as well the world’s largest island, Greenland. In regards to the Arctic, its ocean is covered in floating sea ice throughout the year. The climate of the Arctic varies a lot during the seasonal changes. In the months in the winter season, the sun doesn’t pass the horizon in the Northern Arctic, which in result the temperature significantly be depleted in some areas to -60 degrees Celsius, but to differentiate, during the warmer months of summer, temperatures can cause some areas of the Arctic to melt, due to temperature reaching of 20 degrees Celsius. In the Arctic, the Environmental conditions vary

• Mike had two best friends named Vin and Sal. Sal has seen Vin coming out of the convenience store after the shooting of Mr. and Mrs. Lee

The world warmed by about 0.7°C in the 20th century. Every year in this century has been warmer than all but one in the last century (1998). If carbon-dioxide levels were magically to stabilize where they are now (almost 390 parts per million, 40% more than before the industrial revolution) the world would probably warm by a further half a degree or so as the ocean, which is slow to change its temperature, caught up. But CO2 levels continue to rise. All this affect the ice pack in the Arctic. As temperature rises, ice melts. This causes many problems.

The Arctic is global warming’s canary in the coal mine. It is a highly sensitive area which is profoundly affected by the changing climate. The average temperature in the Arctic is rising twice as fast as elsewhere in the world (nrdc.org). Because of this, the ice cap is getting thinner, melting away, and rupturing. Here is an example of this; the largest ice block in the Arctic, the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf, had been around for 3000 years before it started cracking in 2000 (nrdc.org) By 2002, the Ward Hunt has cracked completely through and had started breaking into smaller pieces. The melting ice caps are affecting the earth and its inhabitants in many ways. In this paper, the following concepts and subjects will be

Glaciers are one of the most fundamental phenomenon on the planet, and much of their purpose and impact on earth has been well documented and published. Ice sheets, Ice Caps and Glaciers trap nearly 90% of the world's fresh water, and are replenished by snowfall each year. Their existence on this planet dates back 650,000,000 years and yet they are always moving, always shifting and always melting. Before, human existence and even during the brief era of humans, ice dominated all of the earth's landmass and have regulated, created and altered many of the landscapes around the world.