All what is here should be in " " because it is copy and paste. More development on the weekend. In my WORD document there are colors added to these copy & paste passages in order to classified the information. Sorry it is long....
Taking Notes
1. ARCTIC DREAM by Calvin LeungCopyright Rogers Publishing Limited Feb 27-Mar 12, 2006
Canadian Business. Toronto: Feb 27-Mar 12, 2006. Vol. 79, Iss. 5; pg. 49, 4 pgs
http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=1004679931&sid=6&Fmt=3&clientId=9268&RQT=309&VName=PQD28 janvier 2007
“The Arctic Climate Impact Assessment report revealed that the global temperature is rising, the burning of fossil fuels is likely to blame, and the average temperature in the Arctic is rising at nearly twice the rate as the rest of the world. (The more pronounced greenhouse effect in the Arctic comes from a vicious circle: warmer temperatures cause snow and ice to melt, exposing land and ocean surfaces that absorb more solar radiation than snow or ice, which in turn causes the temperature in the area to rise.) Not surprisingly, the paper also showed that the average amount of Arctic sea ice during the summer has decreased 15% to 20% over the past 30 years. Perhaps more ominous, the international team of scientists behind the report predicted the Arctic will have no sea ice in the summer period by late this century, with dire consequences for polar bears, certain seals and people who depend on those animals for food”.
2. A Robin In The Arctic?
By Martin Mittelstaedt
Globe and Mail
http://perdurabo10.tripod.com/themindofjamesdonahue/id733.html19 janvier 2007
considering that it was 1,500 kilometers away from home. They had caught sockeye salmon, normally found on the Pacific coast of British Columbia and Alaska.
The Far North is being introduced to the Robin, the South's harbinger of spring and a bird so rarely seen above the tree line that the Inuvialuit don't even have a name for it.
that polar bears along the province's Hudson Bay coastline are getting thinner because the sea ice is melting earlier, giving the animals less time to fatten up on seals, their main prey
Why is all this happening? There could be many explanations, but the common thread through all the occurrences is that Canada's climate has been getting warmer.
That climate change might happen some day is hardly controversial. Humans are adding more carbon dioxide and other planet-warming gases to the atmosphere every year. Since the start of the Industrial Revolution, concentrations of CO{-2}, the main greenhouse gas, have risen by about 30 per cent, but they will double by the end of this century if usage trends for fossil fuels continue.
Scientific models suggest that human-induced changes to the composition of the atmosphere will almost certainly cause temperatures to rise substantially over the next 50 to 100 years.
Warming should not be considered an abstraction due to occur at some vague point in the country's future. It has already arrived, and has been under way for the past few decades.
A group of federal and provincial scientists have concluded that global warming has had a profound influence on Canada after completing the most exhaustive review ever undertaken of the hundreds of studies on the country's climate trends. They looked at reports of unusual wildlife sightings, such as Mr. Babaluk's salmon, the extent of glaciers on the Rockies and data from weather stations going back more than a century.
"There are really strong indicators that the climate is changing," says Environment Canada's Linda Mortsch, the scientist coordinating the effort, "and I think Canadians should be aware of that."
In Whitehorse, for instance, Environment Canada figures show that the Yukon community used to have an average of 63 bone-chilling days a year during the 1950s and 1960s when the mercury plunged to minus 20 or lower. By the 1980s and 1990s, that number had fallen to 49. The same trend occurred in Yellowknife, where the number of extremely cold days has fallen to an average of 108 a year from 121.
But gardeners shouldn't expect to plant tropical varieties any time soon because the trend is unlikely to go on forever, says Joan Klaassen, a climatologist at Environment Canada who has researched the subject.
"Eventually, we would have no winter," she says, plus the length of the frost-free period is volatile.
On paper, Canada has a good position on global warming. It has endorsed the Kyoto Protocol and Prime Minister Paul Martin said in February's Speech from the Throne that his government has unequivocal support for the international pact to cut emissions of planet-warming gases.
But the glaring weakness in the government's commitment is that it hasn't fully explained how the country will meet the mind-boggling 240 million tons of emission cuts required to comply with the treaty.
(To put the challenge of this abstract tonnage figure in perspective, a typical car produces about four tons of CO{-2} a year.)
One of the big worries about global warming is that melting Antarctic and Arctic ice will cause sea levels to rise, inundating low-lying coastal areas.
3. A Possible Benefit from Global Warming by Knight RidderCopyright (c) 2006, The News Tribune, Tacoma, Wash. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.
Knight Ridder Tribune Business News. Washington: Sep 8, 2006. pg. 1
http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=1124224161&sid=5&Fmt=3&clientId=9268&RQT=309&VName=PQD28 janvier 2007
Recent reports on global warming warn of rising temperatures that could lead to declining polar bear populations and more methane gas released from quickly melting permafrost.
Released in 2004, the assessment reported that over the past few decades the extent of Arctic sea ice has been shrinking by an annual average of 5 percent to 10 percent and the thickness has been decreasing by 10 percent to 15 percent.
4. CANADA'S CRISIS by Laura Blue
Copyright Time Incorporated Apr 3, 2006
Time. (Canadian edition). Toronto: Apr 3, 2006. Vol. 167, Iss. 14; pg. 55, 2 pgs
http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=1023494121&sid=6&Fmt=3&clientId=9268&RQT=309&VName=PQD28 janvier 2007
But a massive new Canadian research project, ArcticNet, may provide some early answers about the connections among warming, melting, ecosystem reorganization and human response. And the results may be the best indicator the world will get about what to expect elsewhere. The Arctic will show the earliest and most severe signs of global warming-with Canadian calculations predicting a rise in mean temperature of more than 4° C between the late 20th century and the mid-21st.
ArcticNet, the biggest Arctic research project ever undertaken, calls on more than 100 Canadian researchers from 27 universities and five federal departments to study just about everything in the Canadian Arctic that could be changed by global warming. "It's interesting, but pretty useless, to say the Arctic may have a three-month, ice-free summer, if you don't also look at what the impact will be on the people and industry in the north," says Louis Fortier, scientific director of the Networks of Centres of Excellence project, launched in 2004 and due to run at least seven years. The project grew out of the Canadian Arctic Shelf Exchange Study, which launched the research icebreaker CCGS Amundsen in the Beaufort Sea in September 2003.
Ice, naturally, is central to understanding the Arctic. In the physics of climate change, the ice cover on the water is far more important than the air temperature above it. "Phase change-when there's ice-is really the key," says Rob Macdonald, a Department of Fisheries and Oceans research scientist who studies carbon and contaminant cycling.
The changes in environmental cuesthings like ice cover, temperature and salinity-are reflected in other natural events. The growth rates of algae and phytoplankton change. Salmon are migrating to western Arctic waters from the northern Pacific. There is concern that Atlantic cod will encroach in the east and compete with the smaller Arctic cod, which have thrived in frigid climates with their special proteins that prevent freezing of the blood. Meanwhile, the retracting ice makes it harder for ringed seals to find breeding grounds and for polar bears to hunt.
That means food isn't always there even when the Inuit can travel. Wildlife may well be less adaptable to extreme changes than humans are. When polar bears can't find prey, there are few alternatives; the bears burn their own fat, releasing into their systems the contaminants stored there-pesticides and other industrial chemicals that accumulate in cool Arctic waters and build up in the food chain. Other animals are also in trouble. In February, in what should have been midwinter in the far north, Nunavut's capital city, Iqaluit, was a balmy 5°C and rainy. When the temperature dropped, a layer of ice froze over the tundra. Now there's fear that the caribou, which normally dig through snow-not hard ice-to get lichen in winter, will be underfed. So the Inuit can expect a significant change in their diet.
There are other human-health consequences of the shifting biology that accompanies climate variation. Warming may mean that germs reproduce faster, increasing Inuit exposure to animal diseases, such as trichinosis. Warming could probably also damage public-health infrastructure-sewage systems, water pipes and reservoirs-as the permafrost on which it was built melts. And for Inuit communities, already reordering rapidly through modernization, the extra social dislocation brought by a warmer climate may bring stress, mental health problems and increased substance abuse. On the positive side, frostbite may decrease, along with cardiac problems brought on by heavy exertion in extreme cold.
Should Canada be doing more to mitigate the effects of climate change? Many researchers think so. The Harper government says it is committed to cutting greenhouse-gas emissions but that the Kyoto targets-a decrease of 6% from 1990 levels by 2012-are not achievable given that Canada is, by latest reckoning, 24% over the 1990 baseline. The government has announced that it will develop new "made in Canada" action plans for cutting emissions. Ultimately, once again, the problem will be figuring out which impacts count. But if ArcticNet results are meaningful, the whole world should take note of Canada's north. "It's kind of the canary in the mine shaft," says Louis Fortier. And the canary is roasting.
5. Bearly surviving by News InternationalistCopyright New Internationalist Mar 2000
New Internationalist. Oxford: Mar 2000. , N° 321; pg. 4http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=30&did=385071201&SrchMode=1&sid=2&Fmt=3&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=PQD&TS=1171298723&clientId=926812 février 2007
Polar bears are under threat of starvation from climate change due to melting sea ice, a new study by scientists with the Canadian Wildlife Service concludes. Hudson Bay polar bears are unique in the Arctic because of their tendency to fast for six to eight months of the year, depending heavily on hunting for survival during the sea ice season. Since this season is the shortest in Hudson Bay of all the regions of the Arctic Ocean, these bears are likely to be among the first to be affected by sea ice decline.
Hungry polar bears increasingly wander south and create a ruckus, say locals such as Harvey Lemelin, Executive Director of the Churchill Northern Study Center: 'Encounters now are not only bear sightings but bears that have to be moved away from the property using everything from dogs to vehicles to cracker shells.' Greenpeace in Canada is pushing for the national Government to ratify the Kyoto protocol on climate change and get serious about phasing out fossil-fuel use. Greenpeace campaigner Tooker Gomberg says: 'We're wrong if we think that climate change is something that will happen far off in the future. Polar bears are starving and we need to act now to stop climate change.'
6. Arctic Shows Signs of Serious, Rapid Climate Changehttp://www.ec.gc.ca/EnviroZine/english/issues/48/feature1_e.cfm28 janvier 2007
Sled driver on a two-day traverse along the Arctic coast. Today most Inuit travel by snowmobile.
Nearly four years of effort by hundreds of scientists and experts in traditional knowledge — many of them Canadian — has produced the most detailed assessment ever of the changes in our circumpolar climate and levels of ultraviolet radiation. The assessment also details the potential consequences of these changes for the people living in the Arctic and for the region’s ecosystems.
The Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, or ACIA, reaffirms mounting evidence from scientists and the people of the north that the Canadian Arctic is already experiencing some of the most serious and wide-ranging impacts of climate change seen anywhere.
These impacts are particularly serious and widespread in the western part of the Canadian Arctic, where warming has been the most dramatic of all the regions studied. Average winter temperatures in the region have increased as much as 3-4°C in the past 50 years, and the ACIA projects even larger increases in the region in the century ahead.
The warming temperatures are affecting virtually every aspect of life in the region, from the people, the Arctic coastline, caribou, and ringed seals, to ivory gulls, polar bears and forests.
Ten Key Findings
Arctic climate is now warming rapidly and much larger changes are projected.
Arctic warming and its consequences have worldwide implications.
Arctic vegetation zones are projected to shift, bringing wide-ranging impacts.
Animal species' diversity, ranges, and distribution will change.
Many coastal communities and facilities face increasing exposure to storms.
Reduced sea ice is very likely to increase marine transport and access to resources.
Thawing ground will disrupt transportation, buildings, and other infrastructure.
Indigenous communities are facing major economic and cultural impacts.
Elevated ultraviolet radiation levels will affect people, plants, and animals.
Multiple influences interact to cause impacts to people and ecosystems.
The ACIA found that average temperatures in the Arctic have risen at almost twice the rate of that of the rest of the world over the past several decades. The ACIA projects even larger changes in the future, warning that the consequences of the expected changes will be serious, and felt far beyond the Arctic region.
Over the next 100 years, climate change is expected to accelerate, contributing to major physical, ecological, social, and economic changes, many of which have already begun. Changes in arctic climate will also affect the rest of the world through increased global warming and rising sea levels.
Specifically, the ACIA projects that Arctic vegetation zones will shift, and while warming may make it easier for trees to grow further north, this may also lead to more disturbances such as forest fires, insect infestations and invasions by non-native species.
Polar Bears are unlikely to survive if there is a complete loss of summer sea-ice cover.
The range, distribution and diversity of animal species in the region will change. Reductions in sea ice will drastically shrink the marine habitat for polar bears, ice-inhabiting seals and some seabirds, pushing some species toward extinction. These types of changes will result in major economic, social and health impacts for Indigenous communities.
Warming temperatures and thawing ground will lead to disruption of transportation and industry on land, including oil and gas extraction and forestry, by shortening of the periods during which ice roads and tundra are frozen sufficiently to permit travel.
Fast Facts
In Nunavut, Inuit hunters have noticed the appearance of insects and birds, such as robins, not usually found in their region.
Inuvialuit in the western Canadian Arctic are observing an increase in thunderstorms and lightning, previously a very rare occurrence in the region.
Changing wind patterns are causing the snow to be hard packed. Hunters and travel parties are thus unable to build igloos, which are still commonly relied upon for temporary and emergency shelter. Injuries and deaths have been reported when people caught in sudden storms have not been able to find good snow with which to build shelters.
The average weight and number of cubs born to polar bears in the Hudson Bay region dropped by 15 per cent between 1981 and 1998. Polar bears are very unlikely to survive as a species if there is an almost complete loss of summer sea-ice cover, which is projected to occur before the end of this century by some climate models.
The changing climate may give rise to new opportunities in the North. Marine access to some arctic resources, including offshore oil and gas and some minerals, is likely to be enhanced by the reduction in sea ice, bringing new opportunities as well as new environmental concerns.
Related Sites
Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA)
Canada and the ACIA
Arctic Council
Arctic Mission NFB film series
Inuit Circumpolar Conference
Exploration of the Northwest PassageAs frozen ground thaws, buildings
are in danger of being destabilized.
Also, as frozen ground thaws, many existing buildings, roads, pipelines, airports, and industrial facilities are likely to be destabilized, requiring substantial rebuilding, maintenance, and investment.
Changes in arctic climate will also affect the rest of the world through changes to the global heat balance and contributions to rising sea levels. For example, melting of highly reflective Arctic snow and ice reveals darker land and ocean surfaces, increasing absorption of the Sun’s heat and further warming the planet. Increases in glacial melt and river runoff add more freshwater to the ocean, raising global sea level and possibly slowing the ocean circulation that brings heat from the tropics to the poles, affecting global and regional climate.
In the words of Canada’s Environment Minister, the Honourable Stéphane Dion, “The assessment sends a message to all nations – climate change is a truly global challenge. No nation and no region is immune to its impacts. The Arctic is bearing witness now to the kind of changes other regions will soon see. This is a wake-up call for all of us, not only of the need to reduce emissions, but to realize the importance of adapting to the increasingly changing climate.”
Canada’s Contribution
Canada was a major contributor to the ACIA, both financially and from a scientific point-of-view. The Government of Canada committed over half a million dollars to support the assessment, mostly to facilitate the involvement of Canadian researchers.
Canada’s participation in the ACIA was led by Environment Canada’s Meteorological Service of Canada (MSC) -- some 45 Canadians scientists and 30 Canadian experts in traditional knowledge contributed. In addition, the Canadian Centre for Climate Modeling and Analysis, a Branch of the MSC, provided climate change scenarios used in the assessment process.
Canadians were lead authors on four chapters of the assessment, and contributing authors of many others. Some 76 Canadian researchers and traditional knowledge experts were involved in completing the ACIA.
Other Government of Canada departments also supported Environment Canada, including Natural Resources Canada, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Indian and Northern Affairs Canada and Foreign Affairs Canada.
7. Canadian Polar Bears in Alarming Decline by Canada NewsWire(Copyright (c) 2006 Canada Newswire. All rights reserved.)
Canada NewsWire. Ottawa:
Dec 15, 2006. pg. 1
http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=1181103671&sid=5&Fmt=3&clientId=9268&RQT=309&VName=PQD28 janvier 2007
Five of the world's 19 polar bear populations are now in decline, an increase from one in 2001, WWF- Canada announced today. All five populations occur in Canada.
The information is found in the recently published report by the World Conservation Union's (IUCN) Polar Bear Specialist Group(1). The listing as 'vulnerable' on the IUCN Red List means that a global population decline of 30 per cent or more is expected within three generations or 50 years.
Furthermore, another recent study by the Government of Ontario(2) reveals that a sixth Canadian population could soon be in trouble. The report demonstrates that the body condition in all age classes of the southern Hudson Bay population of polar bears has declined steeply since the mid-1980s. In the southern Beaufort Sea and western Hudson Bay polar bear populations, researchers detected declines in body condition before population levels started to drop, which suggests the southern Hudson Bay population is headed for a decline.
Polar bears depend on sea ice to hunt and survive. With the Arctic warming at more than twice the rate of the rest of the world, and projections that summer sea ice will disappear before the middle of this century, the whole of the Arctic is under immense stress as a result of climate change.
"The polar bear's powerful grip on the Arctic is slipping," said Dr. Peter Ewins, WWF-Canada species conservation director. "Polar bear populations will likely continue to decline, and at a faster rate, unless we take action against global warming. This is very bad news for polar bears, bad news for other Arctic species, and bad news for the indigenous peoples whose traditional ways of life depend on them."
The new findings give added urgency to having short, medium and long term targets and programs to dramatically cut greenhouse gas emissions. Despite being a signatory to the Kyoto Protocol, which commits Canada to cutting greenhouse gas emissions to six per cent below 1990 levels by 2012, the current government has not yet moved aggressively in this direction.
"Climate stabilisation is the key conservation action now for polar bears," said Professor Andrew Derocher, chair of the IUCN Polar Bear Specialist Group. He indicates that observations of drowning polar bears, cannibalism, increased numbers of 'problem' bears (bears that are looking for food near Arctic communities or Inuit food caches and which present a threat to humans), changing behaviour, changing diet and shifting distributions reported from many areas, are consistent with predicted changes caused by rapid climate warming.
The two best studied polar bear populations in the world, the western Hudson Bay population in Canada, and the southern Beaufort Sea population (USA/Canada), have declined by 22 per cent and 17 per cent respectively over the past two decades(3). The other three populations in decline are those in Baffin Bay and Kane Basin - shared between Greenland and Canada - and Norwegian Bay in Canada(4). Excessive hunting of polar bears - both legal and illegal - in some populations is now a concern, although conservation management plans are under way in some areas to meet this new threat. Professor Derocher said: "Hunting is a relatively easy issue to manage and poses a minimal threat to the status of the species."
WWF funds science and conservation work on polar bears in parts of Russia, Alaska, Canada and Scandinavia.
8. Climate Change Starving Polar Bears, Study Claims by Canadian Press NewsWire
Copyright Canadian Press Nov 15, 1999
Canadian Press NewsWire. Toronto: Nov 15, 1999. pg. n/ahttp://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=31&did=384840461&SrchMode=1&sid=2&Fmt=3&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=PQD&TS=1171298723&clientId=926812 février 2007
Polar bears are threatened with starvation because a shorter winter is keeping them from hunting for seals on the ice in Hudson Bay, says a study by the Canadian Wildlife Service.
The study, based on NASA findings on climatic changes, says the sea ice season on Hudson Bay has been reduced by about three weeks over the past 20 years.
The polar bears have less time to hunt for ringed seals, which are their main source of food, and are moving back to land in poorer condition, said the study released Monday by Greenpeace.
The weight of both male and female bears is dropping and the females are having fewer cubs. So far there has not been a significant reduction in the bear population but a decline is inevitable if the trend continues, said the report.
The polar bears in Hudson Bay are unique to the Arctic because they often fast for six to eight months of the year and depend on hunting during the sea ice season to survive.
The NASA study found there has been a 2.9 per cent decline per decade in the total Arctic ice mass over the past 20 years.
9. EDITORIAL: Polar bear becomes lobbyist in fight against global warming ...
Copyright (c) 2006, The Morning Call, Allentown, Pa. Distributed byMcClatchy-Tribune Business News.
Knight Ridder Tribune Business News. Washington: Dec 31, 2006. pg. 1http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=1187709021&sid=5&Fmt=3&clientId=9268&RQT=309&VName=PQD28 Janvier 2007
What do polar bears have to do with the cars we drive, the way we heat our homes or how we power our economy? The pollution from burning fossil fuels -- like gasoline and coal -- is contributing to the global warming that's putting the survival of one of the most recognizable creatures on earth at risk. So says the Bush administration -- which ironically has resisted signing the U.N. Kyoto Accords on controlling greenhouse gasses.
Last week the Bush Interior Department announced that it was proposing to list the polar bear as threatened with extinction. The reason? It's survival is imperiled by the thinning of Arctic sea ice as a result of global warming. Various departments of the federal government have been studying the plight of the polar bear for several years and reached these conclusions. Yet the Interior Department only made the announcement in compliance with settlement of a lawsuit filed by three environmental groups.
It won't be until next year that the polar bear might officially listed as a threatened species, one that's at risk of survival but not likely, or endangered, to become extinct. If global findings hold up to scrutiny, the listing should happen. It's estimated there are 20,000 to 25,000 polar bears in the Arctic -- mostly in Alaska, Greenland and Norway. Studies of polar bears around Canada's Hudson Bay between 1997 and 2004 documented a 21 percent decline in their population at the same time the bay's sea ice started breaking up and melting earlier and earlier. The polar bears use the sea ice to hunt their main food -- ringed seals. Less hunting time results in thinner bears which results in lower reproductive rates and decreased survival of cubs. It also means bears have to swim farther than they normally do and researchers have reported finding bears that have drowned. Some fear that polar bear numbers could decline 30 percent over the next 45 years and that even more sea ice could disappear in the same time.
On Wednesday Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne said "we are concerned the polar bear's habitat may literally be melting."
This is an admission with far-reaching implications. If the polar bear is listed as threatened, it will prohibit all of the federal government from doing anything that might jeopardize the animals. That could include oil and gas exploration in the Arctic. Secretary Kempthorne denied that doing so in Alaska -- something the Bush administration wants to do -- would affect polar bears. However, it's likely the polar bear could begin a wider discussion about joining the U.N. effort to control carbon dioxide emissions, making automobiles more gasoline efficient, controlling industrial and power plant emissions, developing more alternative fuels and a host of other politically difficult issues (see editorial below). The polar bear, it turns out, is a political animal.
10. Environment: Bears on Thin Ice; [U.S. Edition Edition] by Jerry Adler
Copyright (c) Newsweek, Incorporated - 2007.
Newsweek. New York: Jan 8, 2007. Vol. 149, N° 1; pg. 9http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=2&did=1188369221&SrchMode=1&sid=1&Fmt=3&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=PQD&TS=1171298069&clientId=926812 février 2007
An adult polar bear needs, on average, four to five pounds of seal blubber a day to survive, and it earns every ounce of it: crouching for hours in the Arctic cold alongside an opening in the ice, waiting for a seal to surface for a breath. Although bears may spend part of the year on land, sea ice is their essential habitat; biologists have warned that Ursus maritimus could be the first large mammal to fall victim to global warming, which is rapidly shrinking the polar ice cap. And so environmentalists are delighted with the announcement by the Interior Department that it is proposing the white bear for listing as "threatened," a step below the more urgent category of "endangered."
They were even more pleased because the proposal represented a long-sought admission by a recalcitrant Bush administration of the extent and dangers of global warming. The Arctic appears to be "moving toward a new 'super interglacial' state that falls outside of natural [cycles] that have characterized the past 800,000 years," the Interior report noted. But in interviews Secretary Dirk Kemp-thorne was careful to tell reporters that the "whole aspect of climate change is beyond the scope of the Endangered Species Act." In fact, the listing wasn't even the administration's idea; a coalition of environmental groups led by the Center for Biological Diversity sued the department a year ago to put polar bears on the list. Interior can now take up to an additional 12 months to actually make the designation official, and then start work on a plan to save the bears. Meanwhile, researchers announced last week that an ice shelf covering 41 square miles, apparently loosened by warm Arctic temperatures, had broken free of land on the coast of Canada's Ellesmere Island and drifted 30 miles out to sea.
11. Feeling the Heat by Kathryn R. Satterfield
Copyright (c) Time inc.,2007.
Kathryn R. Satterfield. Time For Kids. (World Report Ed.). New York: Jan 12, 2007.Vol.12, N° 14; pg. 4
http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=0&did=1191393491&SrchMode=1&sid=6&Fmt=3&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=PQD&TS=1171292820&clientId=926812 février 2007
Polar bears are suffering in a warmer world.
Polar bears thrive in environments too harsh for most animals. For much of the year, they live and hunt on the frozen Arctic sea ice. Nature has prepared them for the harsh conditions. But nothing has prepared the bears for the danger that threatens the only home they know.
The polar bears' world is melting. Studies show that the permanent polar ice has declined by 9.8% every 10 years since 1978 Scientists blame global warming for the shrinking polar ice. They say that climate change is harming polar bear populations.
Two weeks ago, the U.S. Department of the Interior said that it was taking steps to list the polar bear as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. The action came on the heels of a World Conservation Union decision to move polar bears to threatened status on its Red List of Threatened Species. The World Conservation Union warns that polar bear populations could fall by 30% over the next 45 years.
A Bear of a Problem
Scientists estimate that 20,000 to 25,000 polar bears live in the Arctic. They are spread across five countries. Approximately 4,700 of the bears live in the U.S., within Alaskan waters.
Polar bears depend on the sea ice for their survival. Seals, their main prey, breed on the ice.
"The sea ice is more than just this platform that the bears walk over," says Andrew Derocher, a scientist who studies North American polar bear populations. "Without it, they can't exist."
Some melting and refreezing of the polar ice is natural. But in a warmer world, these cycles speed up, and bears have less time to hunt. Normally, they have three months in the spring when they pack on the pounds. The extra fat is used later, when the bears are not actively hunting. Pregnant females depend on this stored fat to nourish their cubs.
Since the early 1990s, scientists have seen a drop in polar bears' body weight. Fewer cubs are being born, and fewer survive. In Canada's Western Hudson Bay, the polar bear population dropped 22% from 1987 to 2004
To Protect and Save
The Department of the Interior has a year to make its final decision. If the bears gain threatened status, the department will work with businesses and international officials to set strict rules to protect the bear and spur its recovery.
The polar bear's plight may seem distant to some. But Derocher told TFK that it is up to this generation to stop global warming and its dire consequences. He urges kids to think about what they can do to help the environment. Even simple steps--turning off the lights, walking instead of riding in a car--can really make a difference. "I'm optimistic about humans' ability to deal with this," he says.
12. Polar Bear Politics by Wall Street Journalc) 2005 Dow Jones & Company, Inc
Wall Street Journal. (Eastern edition). New York, N.Y.: Jan 3, 2007. pg. A.12http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=5&did=1188558681&SrchMode=1&sid=3&Fmt=3&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=PQD&TS=1171300665&clientId=926812 février 2007
Unless you've been hibernating for the winter, you have no doubt heard the many alarms about global warming. Now even the Bush Administration is getting into the act, at least judging from last week's decision by Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne to recommend that the majestic polar bear be listed as "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act. The closer you inspect this decision, however, the more it looks like the triumph of politics over science.
"We are concerned," said Mr. Kempthorne, that "the polar bears' habitat may literally be melting" due to warmer Arctic temperatures. However, when we called Interior spokesman Hugh Vickery for some elaboration, he was a lot less categorical, even a tad defensive. The "endangered" designation is based less on the actual number of bears in Alaska than on "projections into the future," Mr. Vickery said, adding that these "projection models" are "tricky business."
Apparently so, because there are in fact more polar bears in the world now than there were 40 years ago, as the nearby chart shows (See accompanying chart -- WSJ Jan. 3, 2007). The main threat to polar bears in recent decades has been from hunting, with estimates as low as 5,000 to 10,000 bears in the 1950s and 1960s. But thanks to conservation efforts, and some cross-border cooperation among the U.S., Canada and Russia, the best estimate today is that the polar bear population is 20,000 to 25,000.
It also turns out that most of the alarm over the polar bear's future stems from a single, peer-reviewed study, which found that the bear population had declined by some 250, or 25%, in Western Hudson Bay in the last decade. But the polar bear's range is far more extensive than Hudson Bay. A 2002 U.S. Geological Survey of wildlife in the Arctic Refuge Coastal Plain concluded that the ice bear populations "may now be near historic highs." One of the leading experts on the polar bear, Mitchell Taylor, the manager of wildlife resources for the Nunavut territory in Canada, has found that the Canadian polar bear population has actually increased by 25% -- to 15,000 from 12,000 over the past decade.
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Mr. Taylor tells us that in many parts of Canada, "polar bears are very abundant and productive. In some areas, they are overly abundant. I understand that people not living in the North generally have difficulty grasping the concept of too many polar bears, but those who live here have a pretty good grasp of what that is like." Those cuddly white bears are the Earth's largest land carnivores.
There is no doubt that higher temperatures threaten polar bear habitat by melting sea ice. Mr. Kempthorne also says he had little choice because the threshold for triggering a study under the Endangered Species Act is low. The Bush Administration was sued by the usual environmental suspects to make this decision, which means that Interior will now conduct a year-long review before any formal listing decision is made.
Nonetheless, the bears seem to have survived despite many other severe warming and cooling periods over the last few thousands of years. Polar bears are also protected from poaching and environmental damage by the Marine Mammal Protection Act, so there is little extra advantage to the bears themselves from an "endangered" classification.
All of which suggests that the real story here is a human one, namely about the politics of global warming. Once a plant or animal is listed under the Endangered Species Act, the government must also come up with an elaborate plan to protect its habitat. If the polar bear is endangered by warmer temperatures, then the environmentalist demand will be that the government do something to address that climate change. Faster than you can say Al Gore, this would lead to lawsuits and cries in Congress demanding federal mandates to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Think we're exaggerating? No sooner had Mr. Kempthorne announced his study than Kassie Siegel of something called the Center for Biological Diversity told the
New York Times that "even this Administration" would not be able to "write this proposal without acknowledging that the primary threat to polar bears is global warming and without acknowledging the science of global warming." Her outfit was one of those who had sued the feds in the first place over the polar bears, notwithstanding its location in the frozen tundra of Arizona. But no matter. For want of a few hundred polar bears, the entire U.S. economy could be vulnerable to judicial dictation.
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With that much at stake, Mr. Kempthorne could have shown a stiffer backbone in resisting this political pressure. At the very least he now has an obligation to ensure that Interior's year-long study be based on real science and the actual polar bear population, rather than rely on computer projections. Any government decision to limit greenhouse gases deserves to be debated in the open, where the public can understand the consequences, not legislated by the back door via the Endangered Species Act.
13. WARMER AND HUNGRIER [Pushing nature's limits] by Susan McClellandCopyright Rogers Publishing Limited Jun 2, 2003
McClelland, Susan. Maclean's. Toronto: Jun 2, 2003.Vol.116, N° 22; pg. 34http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=1&did=630876331&SrchMode=1&sid=5&Fmt=3&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=PQD&TS=1171292274&clientId=926812 février 2007
In 1987, Edmonton scientist Ian Stirling noticed an odd phenomenon: the polar bears he had been observing for the past 10 years south of Churchill, Man., were losing weight. Stirling, who works with Canada's Wildlife Service, suspected natural causes, possibly a temporary decrease in the bears' food supply, largely ringed seals. But the weight loss continued. Today, Churchill's 1,200 polar bears are 15 per cent lighter than they were 30 years ago. Studies Stirling and his colleagues have conducted over the past two decades now point to global warming as the culprit.
Polar bears eat most of their food in the spring, when they roam the ice in search of seals surfacing through holes for air. But with temperatures in Hudson Bay rising, the ice breaks up about two weeks earlier than it used to, leaving the bears less time to hunt. One side effect of their diminishing weight is that they're having fewer cubs -- mostly twins rather than triplets. Researchers expect they'll see similar effects elsewhere. "These bears are an indicator," says Stirling, "of the type of thing that will happen to polar bears in other places as the climate continues to warm."
14. Bad News Bears by William Speed Weed
Copyright Weekly Reader Corporation Jan 6, 2006
William Speed Weed. Current Science. Stamford: Jan 6, 2006.Vol.91, N° 9; pg. 8, 2 pgshttp://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=11&did=966514081&SrchMode=1&sid=2&Fmt=4&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=PQD&TS=1171298591&clientId=926812 février 2007
Why are polar bears drowning in the Arctic, and what does that signal for the future?
A polar bear hangs on to a slab of ice in the Arctic Ocean north of Canada.
Dozens of polar bears died unexpectedly in northern Alaska last summer. The culprit wasn't disease or poachers or lack of food. It was melting ice.
The top of the world is now capped with less ice and more water than at any time in the last hundred thousand years. The expanses of open water that exist between the land and the polar ice cap are growing. Dozens of bears drowned where the ice retreated by as much as 640 kilometers (400 miles) from shore-a new record.
"A polar bear might be able to swim 100 miles but not 400," Charlie Johnson, a native Inuit, from Nome, Alaska, told the Independent of London.
The drowning deaths of polar bears may be the first sign of worse to come if the ice cap continues shrinking and even disappears.
TEMPERATURE RISING
For more than 25 years, the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo., has monitored the size of the Arctic ice cap with satellites. During most of that time, the ice cap has averaged about 7 million square kilometers in area-roughly the size of the contiguous United States. By last September, however, it had shrunk by 20 percent, or 1.3 million square kilometers.
What is causing the shrinkage? Global warming, says Raphael Sagarin, an ecologist at the
University of California (Los Angeles). Sagarin found that spring thaw now arrives five and a half days earlier in Alaska than it did 80 years ago.
In the last century, Earth's average global temperature increased by 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit). That may not seem like much, but it's enough to have dramatic effects.
In a complex system such as global climate, subtle variations to the whole can bring about profound changes in specific places. "You can warm the Earth a degree at a time, and things will seem to be changing smoothly with that warming," says Richard Alley, a geologist at
Pennsylvania State University. "But then that warming creates a change of some sort that surprises you-it's abrupt and bigger than you expected."
Alley says the melting of the Arctic ice cap will likely kick off a positive feedback loop, a process that reinforces itself. "Ice and snow are really bright," says Richard Alley, whose research takes him to Greenland every summer. "That's why we wear sunglasses in winter." In scientific terms, ice has a high albedo. Albedo is the capacity of a surface to reflect the sun's energy. Arctic ice mirrors a great deal of sunlight back into space, helping cool the planet.*********
When polar ice melts, the ocean's water is exposed, and water has a much lower albedo than ice does. "Sunlight goes into the water and warms it up, which causes even more ice to melt," says Alley, "so there's more ocean for sunlight to hit and melt more ice, and so on." Within a few decades, global warming and the positive feedback loop it has set in motion in the Arctic could melt the ice cap completely every summer, says Alley.
LOSING GROUND? Global warming has shrunk the natural habitat of polar bears like the mother and cub caught on film (top) in the Arctic Ocean. The two satellite photos of the Arctic ice cap were taken in September 2002 (above left) and September 2005 (above right). They show how much ice has disappeared from the ice cap-1.3 million square kilometers-in just three years. Polar bears are drowning because they cannot swim the greater distances that now exist between the land and the ice cap.
CHILLING EFFECT
That kind of melting would have a huge impact on the North Atlantic Ocean, according to scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts. When seawater freezes, its salt precipitates, or comes out of solution. So the Arctic ice cap is freshwater ice-and its melt-water is freshwater.
A surge of fresh meltwater into the northern Atlantic could completely disrupt the Gulf Stream, an ocean current that flows northward from the tropics along the surface of the Atlantic Ocean carrying as much warm water as 75 Amazon Rivers. The Gulf Stream gives up its heat to the atmosphere and warms the neighboring land of eastern Canada, the northeastern United States, and Europe.
CAPPING CARBON
Scientists have linked global warming to an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide released by fossil fuel-burning cars and industries. Carbon concentrations in the air have gone from 275 parts per million to 380 parts per million since the 1800s and are continuing to climb. Can that climb be arrested?
"Humans have always solved problems by being clever. It will take some of the best minds on the planet a few decades to invent new ways to make energy without polluting," says Alley. "And it will not happen unless bright people study the problem. Your readers should become scientists or engineers focused on the energy problem-or encourage their friends to do so."
15. Is Global Warming Killing the Polar Bears? By Jim CarltonCopyright (c) 2005, Dow Jones & Company Inc
Jim Carlton. Wall Street Journal. (Eastern edition). New York, N.Y.: Dec 14, 2005. pg. B.1http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=13&did=941094761&SrchMode=1&sid=2&Fmt=3&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=PQD&TS=1171298591&clientId=926812 février 2007
Scientists for the first time have documented multiple deaths of polar bears off Alaska, where they likely drowned after swimming long distances in the ocean amid the melting of the Arctic ice shelf. The bears spend most of their time hunting and raising their young on ice floes.
In a quarter-century of aerial surveys of the Alaskan coastline before 2004, researchers from the U.S. Minerals Management Service said they typically spotted a lone polar bear swimming in the ocean far from ice about once every two years.
Polar-bear drownings were so rare that they have never been documented in the surveys.
But in September 2004, when the polar ice cap had retreated a record 160 miles north of the northern coast of Alaska, researchers counted 10 polar bears swimming as far as 60 miles offshore. Polar bears can swim long distances but have evolved to mainly swim between sheets of ice, scientists say.
The researchers returned to the vicinity a few days after a fierce storm and found four dead bears floating in the water. "Extrapolation of survey data suggests that on the order of 40 bears may have been swimming and that many of those probably drowned as a result of rough seas caused by high winds," the researchers say in a report set to be released today.
While the government researchers won't speculate on why a climate change is taking place in the Arctic, environmentalists unconnected to the survey say U.S. policies emphasizing oil and gas development are exacerbating global warming, which is accelerating the melting of the ice. "For anyone who has wondered how global warming and reduced sea ice will affect polar bears, the answer is simple -- they die," said Richard Steiner, a marine-biology professor at the University of Alaska.
The environmental group Greenpeace began airing a 30-second commercial yesterday in New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta and other cities showing an animated adult polar bear and a cub on a cracking ice floe. The two bears, nowhere near land, slip underneath the water. "Polar bears may soon be extinct because of global warming," the voice-over states. It ends with "Global Warming: It's the Real Thing," a takeoff of a
Coca-Cola Co. commercial featuring polar bears.
Some experts say that climate change may indeed be shrinking the ice pack, but they dispute that emissions are the main culprit or that significantly cutting greenhouse gases would really make a difference. "Whether humans are responsible for some, most, or all of the current warming trend in the Arctic, there is no proposal on the table that would actually prevent continued warming or reverse present trends," said Sterling Burnett, a senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis, a nongovernment organization based in Dallas. "The question is how to adapt to future changes in climate, regardless of the direction or the cause."
In addition to documenting polar-bear deaths, the Minerals Management Service researchers, Chuck Monnett, Jeffrey Gleason and Lisa Rotterman, also found a striking shift in the bears' habits. From 1979 to 1991, 87% of the bears spotted were found mostly on sea ice. From 1992 to 2004, the percentage dropped to 33%. Most of the remaining bears have been found either in the ocean or on beaches, congregating around carcasses of whales butchered by hunters. In the past, polar bears were rarely seen at such kill sites, because they spent their time hunting their favorite meal -- seals -- on sea ice.
Marine experts consider the findings -- to be presented at a marine- mammal conference this week in San Diego -- an ominous sign. Some have warned for years that a rapid thawing of the Arctic from global warming could endanger species like the polar bear. Already, a warmer Alaska over the past half-century has been linked to increased erosion of rivers and streams, insect infestations and the undermining of pipelines and roads as the permafrost thaws.
Alarmed by the swift changes, the Alaska Inter-Tribal Council, a consortium of the state's tribes, earlier this month passed a resolution urging that the U.S. government enact a mandatory program to reduce global warming.
Some scientists predict polar bears could become extinct within the next century because they have adapted over the millennia to only hunting on ice. If they try to swim in disappearing ice conditions to catch seals, more are likely to tire and drown, scientists say.
Polar bears that stay onshore aren't adapted to hunting land animals like caribou, which are preyed upon by more-aggressive grizzly bears. Polar bears also require more fat intake than most food on land offers them, experts say.
"As the sea ice goes, that will direct to a very great extent what happens to polar bears," said Steven Amstrup, a polar-bear specialist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Anchorage, Alaska.
Another study set to be released at the marine-mammal conference shows what might happen to the Alaskan polar bears over time. Researchers from the USGS, the University of Wyoming and the Canadian Wildlife Service found that the population of polar bears in Canada's western Hudson Bay -- near the southernmost habitat for the bears in the world -- fell to 935 in 2004 from 1,194 in 1987, a 22% drop. Researchers said the decline -- the first recorded for these bears -- came in tandem with an extension by nearly a full month in the time it takes for Hudson Bay to ice over after the summer.
"Our findings may foreshadow how more northerly populations will respond to projected warming in the Arctic ecosystem," wrote Mr. Amstrup, a co-author of the report.
Previous studies by the U.S. and Canadian governments support a link between the decline in sea ice in the Arctic and the ways polar bears try to adapt to their surroundings. For example, researchers say polar bears in the Beaufort Sea off Alaska and Canada used to spend most of their lives jumping from ice floe to ice floe in pursuit of seals. Only pregnant bears would occasionally wander onto the mainland, in search of a den.
But weekly aerial surveys by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service show that, over the past five years, an unusually large number of bears have congregated along the beaches. Between the coastal town of Barrow, Alaska and the Canadian border, about 300 miles east, researchers counted as many as 200 bears on land, said Scott Schliebe, director of the Fish and Wildlife's polar-bear project. Many bears could be seen gathered around whale carcasses near villages like Kaktovik, which lies in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge where the Bush administration is pushing for drilling.
Scientists measured the distances from where the bears were gathered to the nearest ice sheets at sea and found this correlation: The farther the ice was from shore, the larger the number of bears were found on land.
16. Russia, U.S. Seek To Save Polar Bears by ------------Copyright Russian Information Services Sep/Oct 2006
Anonymous. Russian Life. Montpelier: Sep/Oct 2006.Vol.49, N° 5; pg. 10, 1 pgs
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U.S. House ratifies polar bear treaty with Russia
Russia and the U.S. are joining forces to protect polar bears from over-hunting and other threats to their survival. On July 17, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to approve a treaty with Russia that sets quotas on polar bear hunting by indigenous populations and establishes a bilateral commission to study how to best protect polar bear habitats, The Associated Press reported. It must now be reconciled with a similar bill passed by the Senate in June.
The bill prohibits the possession, sale and purchase of a polar bear or one of its body parts and establish an enforcement authority for violators. It also approves annual spending of $2 million for the polar bear program through 2010.
The polar bear population in the Arctic, currently numbering between 20,000 and 25,000, is expected to fall 30 percent within 45 years, according to the Polar Bear Specialist Group of the World Conservation Union. Habitat destruction due to climactic warming, pollution and over-hunting are the main threats. Russia banned polar bear hunting in 1956, while the U.S. has allowed subsistence hunting by native groups. Both countries, however, have problems with polar bear poaching, and the treaty is expected to improve enforcement of existing regulations. Illegal hunting in Russia has caused particular concern, since polar bears commonly breed there.
17. Arctic ice melts, polar bears may starveHope Cristol. The Futurist. Washington: Jul/Aug 2003.Vol.37, N° 4; pg. 6http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=354304591&sid=4&Fmt=4&clientId=9268&RQT=309&VName=PQD12 février 2007
On paper
18. Possible Effects of Climate Warming on Selected Populations of Polar Bears (Ursus maritimus) in the Canadian ArcticIan Stirling, Claire L Parkinson. Arctic. Calgary: Sep 2006.Vol.59, N° 3; pg. 261, 15 pgs
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19. BEAR-LY SURVIVING
Anonymous. Scholastic News. (Ed. 3). New York: Jan 24, 2005.Vol.61, N° 13; pg. 1, 2 pgs
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20. GIANTS IN JEOPARDY. Alaska. Anchorage: Oct 2004.Vol.70, N° 8; pg. 48, 8 pgshttp://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=702726661&sid=2&Fmt=2&clientId=9268&RQT=309&VName=PQD12 février 2007
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21. ON THIN ICEAnna Prokos. Super Science. Jefferson City: Mar 2004.Vol.15, N° 6; pg. 12, 3 pgshttp://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=569677071&sid=2&Fmt=4&clientId=9268&RQT=309&VName=PQD12 février 2007
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22. Arctic lords on the ice edgeJudy Waytiuk. Americas. (English edition). Washington: Jul/Aug 2002.Vol.54, N° 4; pg. 6, 10 pgshttp://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=135358831&sid=2&Fmt=2&clientId=9268&RQT=309&VName=PQD12 février 2007
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