The Effects Of Sea Ice On The Earth's Climate System

The voyage of Shackleton and his crew was one of many obstacles and complications. Ice is one of the many kinds of danger the Endurance crew came face to face with throughout their adventurous journey. People who are uneducated about how ice can be dangerous won’t understand the level of danger these men were in on a daily basis. One cannot even begin to understand the threat they were in; the stories don’t even do justice to kinds of things these men encountered.

sea ice. Similarly, since the ice has only spread 5.607 million square miles this year, it could

As important as it is, Arctic coastal sea ice plays a vital role in dynamics of the coastline, covers stretches of open water which serve as important biological habitats, and serves as a platform for a broad range of activities by residents and industries (Druckenmiller et al., 2009). Sea ice is also important because it is used as a platform for harvesting seals and whales in spring, transport of personnel and supplies to camps, and as a network of trails (Druckenmiller et al., 2009). Dangerous effects of climate change include “ice breakouts” which are when large chunks of ice that whalers are using as working areas break off of the main ice blocks and take whaling camps out to sea (Druckenmiller et al.,

“The Glacier, and with it the Duck, might have moved since then.” Lou Sapienza is the lead organizer of a Coast Guard Operation searching for a missing World War II plane; the Grumman Duck and its lost crew. A challenging problem the party has with finding the Duck is the movement of glaciers since the planes went down close to 70 years ago. Since the 1950s the extent and the movement of the ice sheets have rapidly changed due to Global Warming. Most affected by this climate change is The Arctic, Antarctica and the Greenland Ice Cap. Lou Sapienza and his team of specialists only have a hand-drawn map of where the Duck crashed and an old radar survey from years ago. Their daring task is to predict how the movement of the ice sheet accelerated by global warming might have moved their missing plane. Since global warming is a problem, everyone will be affected by it in one way or another. It is time to act, to confront the problem and find a solution.

Global warming is a realistic event rapidly taking place before our eyes, although its existence is a controversial political issue. In the documentary entitled Antarctic Edge: 70 Degrees South, the creators claim that drastic climate change is currently inevitable and threatens to destroy humanity. Antarctica, a place of harsh and extreme temperatures, has undergone the effects of climate change for several years now. The melting ice is raising the sea level in the world’s oceans, which can lead to problems such as Hurricane Sandy transitioning from a “hundred year event to a ten year event”. Therefore, the creators of the film are arguing that something must be done to stop climate change for the destruction taking place among Antarctica’s ecological system is only a precursor of what the rest of the world could later witness.

In order to provide context for the recent decline of ice in the sea, it is imperative to understand how the sea ice has varied over the past two centuries. Of particular interest, the period around 1920-1940 showed an “increase in almost twice the global average rate in past 100 years. [ ]” The warming during this time can be used to compare the decline of sea ice observed since 1979, but what will also be discussed is how this time period was also quite controversial due to its substantial variance between the official views and views held by other people. The reliability of the sea ice observations during the first half of the 20th century according to some people cannot provide certainty to estimating

In the Ian Eisenman, Tapio Schneider, Davis Battisti, and Cecilia Bitz’s article “Consistent Changes in the Sea Ice Seasonal Cycle in Response to Global Warming”, published in Journal of Climate, authors describes and illustrates how global warming affect arctic ice. Authors explain that even though, changes in distribution in ice on both hemispheres of earth looks different it is only due to geological factors. However, in conclusion, the rate of withdrawal of the ice is drastic on both hemispheres, and it is mostly due to global warming.

Sea ice has significant importance in the northern Arctic. The sea ice is extremely vital for the marine animals that live in this ecosystem. In particular the sea ice allows them to hunt, mate, and travel. The sea ice allows animals such as polar bears to hunt and search for their prey that lives underwater. It helps females and males find mates to grow their population, and lastly the sea ice allows for polar bears to travel from different locations. Another reason for the importance of sea ice is that it helps keep our planet cool particularly through the albedo effect (Kaitlin, 2016). Potential consequences of the melting of the sea ice could have devastating effects of marine animals in the north, and also for our entire planet because

The climate is changing in the Arctic. The temperatures are rising which is causing the sea temperatures to rise. This rise in temperature is causing sea ice and the glaciers to

Ice is one of the first indicators of global warming actually occuring and it is important for research to be done on these layers of before they disappear. The recession of glaciers and the fragmentation of ice caps has been a clear sign to many that rising temperatures are having an impact, even on our very lives.

Evidence indicates, Earth’s natural climate has a history of dramatic changes from warmer and cooler periods that can last for a few centuries. Mankind geologically speaking lives in a time period of intense climate change, and over the past million years we have experienced a dozen or so major glaciations, with the greatest occurring around 650,000 years ago, long before the Industrial Revolution, The Ice Age. This cooling period in Earth’s climate lasted for somewhere around 50,000 years and included the extreme buildup of ice that covered major regions, such as the Midwest, Canada, Germany, and several smaller regions. During this time the sea level had dropped by approximately 400 feet and the overall global temperature dropped nearly 9

Because of global warming, glaciers and ice sheets have began to melt. There are also many differences in sea levels and ice sheets. When these ice sheets melt, the creatures that live on the ice sheets’ populations can decrease. Furthermore, a scientist has seen the amount of penguins lower a great amount because of global warming. Their population decreased 21,000 in 3 decades. Global warming also affects communities near the shore. When sea levels rise, they flood communities. Not only this, but the precipitation amount has changed drastically. Since recently, it has increased in some areas and decreased in others. This is because of climate change, caused by global warming. In addition, an invasive bug called the Spruce Bark Beetle

The West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) has experienced an accelerated ice loss over the past two decades and thus has been contributing to sea level rise (Joughin and Alley 2011; Rignot et al. 2008). Its total loss would raise global sea level by more than 3 meters (Bamber et al. 2009). Much of the grounded ice of the WAIS rests on a bedrock well below sea level, which is a major factor of instability (Joughin and Alley 2011). The rate of WAIS ice loss to the ocean is reduced by the presence of extensive ice shelves along the coast. However, in response to atmospheric and oceanic warming, West Antarctic ice shelves have recently undergone thinning and retreat, especially around the Antarctic Peninsula (Trusel et al. 2015). Surface melting occurring

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

The Earth’s average surface temperatures have risen almost by 0.80°C over the last 100 years (Graham 2010: 8-46). Global sea levels have risen by almost 7 inches (17 centimeters) (Graham 2010: 8-46). The rate of rise in average temperature and sea levels in the last half of the century was double to that of the entire 20th century (Graham 2010: 8-46). The majority of the warming and rise in sea level has occurred since 1970’s (Graham 2010: 8-46). This alarming increase in rate in 21st is reflected by the fact that 10 of the warmest years of all-time have occurred in the last 15 years (Graham 2010: 8-46). This increase in temperature affects the oceans the most. Majority of the heat is absorbed by the large water bodies, the temperature of top layer of oceans has increased by 0.302 degrees Fahrenheit since 1970s’ (Graham 2010: 8-46). The ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctic have significantly declined in mass (Edwards 2008: 1-11). According to NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Greenland lost approximately 200 cubic kilometers of ice per year, on the other hand Antarctica lost about 15o cubic kilometers of ice between the years of 2002 and 2005 (Edwards 2008: 1-11). Finally, the last key piece of evidence for global warming is the acidification of ocean water. As