Travel guide - travel destinations, hotels, restaurants, culture, history - TripAround.net » Ecology

Do We Waste Our Time With ‘Environmentally Friendly’ Living?

Freelancer — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 14:28:42 +0000

All your personal efforts to live more sustainably do not make any difference to the world’s environment.

That’s the assertion environmental writer Derrick Jensen makes in his recent article “Forget Shorter Showers,” published in Orion magazine.

The industrial economy is so large, and so much the source of our planet’s environmental woes, Jensen argues, that even if all individuals reduced their carbon footprint to zero, climate change and other catastrophes would still ravage the earth due to industry’s large-scale harm. If industry is the one clear, hulking threat to our species’ – and all species’ – future survival, then why on earth do we all content ourselves with recycling, composting and taking shorter showers?

Jensen believes this is insanity: “Would any sane person think dumpster diving would have stopped Hitler, or that composting would have ended slavery or brought about the eight-hour workday…?” his article begins.

Yet this “insanity” is something to which most all of us subscribe. We teach school children to turn off lights when they’re not using them, run public awareness campaigns to stress no lawn watering during droughts, and our governments offer tax incentives to individuals who buy energy efficient appliances. Quite comically, a recent public service announcement produced in Brazil urges everyone to pee while showering so they won’t waste water flushing the toilet afterward.

But despite all these efforts to make individuals change their ways to save the planet, the fact remains that a vast majority of energy, water and other resources are consumed by bigger players: corporations, agribusiness, governments, militaries, and industrial transportation. And in turn, these big players also emit the vast majority of greenhouse gasses, Jensen states.

Why do we believe we can make a difference?

Jensen thinks our capitalist, consumerist societies have duped us into believing all our power lies in the dollars we spend and the individual actions we take as consumers. If you buy low-flush toilets, for example, you believe you are encouraging production of more low-flush toilets and increasing the likelihood that more consumers will also choose low-flush toilets and thereby save the world a lot of water. While consumer trends can and do sometimes direct the tide of a particular industry, such as the recent surge in organic food products due to customer demand, oftentimes this is simply not enough to halt an industry’s irreversible and widespread environmental damage.

In truth, individuals are capable of affecting change with far more than just their wallets. Voting, protesting, lobbying, and boycotting are just a few such actions that Jensen points out. But at the end of the day, aren’t we all looking for tangible and easily accomplished ways to make a difference today? Isn’t that why individual acts of sustainable living appeal to us all – and why we sometimes forego the more aggressive or radical acts that can require years of time and energy to accomplish even modest gains? While personal acts might make us feel better now, Jensen’s bottom line is this: “Personal change doesn’t equal social change.”

Be the change you wish to see in the world?

Those who would oppose Jensen’s position argue that living sustainably is an extremely important act, and that every large-scale social change begins at the grassroots level with individuals who are willing to change their own behaviors as a model for others. For example, Rosa Parks and the many other opponents of American racial segregation didn’t begin by directly attacking the large-scale social system that enabled discrimination; rather, both black and white opponents of segregation began by living their values of equality every day and leading by example. In time, the movement grew – as will the sustainable living revolution.

While some may agree with Jensen that industry is certainly a large-scale enemy of the global environment, they are equally adamant that change must begin with each individual deciding to live by the values to which they plan on holding others (such as industrial leaders) accountable. And yes, in the face of such large global problems, there is some comfort in taking your own daily actions, however modest, to help save the world.

What do you think?

Are personal decisions to live more sustainably worth the effort? Should we instead focus our environmental efforts on affecting widespread changes to the industrial economy?

– Jennifer Colletti

Sphere: Related Content

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Ecology and History of the Amazon Rain Forest

Freelancer — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 13:06:00 +0000

The Amazon rain forest houses the Amazon River and rich ecological biodiversity. Taking up the majority of Brazil, the Amazon’s biology and ecology is truly unique.

No place on Earth is as full of diverse life and landscape as the Amazon Rainforest. It spreads its tall trees and rich biodiversity over 40% of the South American continent. The Amazon River shares its name with its host, and is 11 times the volume of the Mississippi river. The massive water system begins in the Andes Mountains and winds its way 4,080 miles eastward to the Atlantic Ocean, rushing through the forests with tremendous force. The annual outflow of the river is responsible for 1/5 of the entire world’s freshwater flow. Everything about this habitat is super-sized.

Amazon’s Unique Ecology

Despite its moist, humid conditions and massive growth across Brazil, much of the Amazon rainforest sits upon very poor soil. In The Central Amazon Floodplain: Ecology of a Pulsing System, Wolfgang J. Junk explains that the top two inches of soil contain 99% of the nutrients. The forest floor must be like a sponge to maintain minerals and nutrients throughout heavy rainfalls.

He goes on to talk about the incredible diversity of plants, animals and insects that thrive in these unique conditions. One in five birds lives in the Amazon. More than a thousand species of frogs can be found in the Amazon basin. A single square mile may contain as many as 50,000 insects. The Amazon has few large animals; only about 800 different types.

Amazon History

Such a large system has a deep history. About 15 million years ago, the Amazon River flowed west. Over the course of time, Earth’s tectonic plates broke apart and the South American plate shifted into another plate, creating the Andes Mountain Range. At this point the Amazon could no longer flow into the Pacific Ocean and backed up, creating an area of freshwater pools and lakes. About 10 million years ago the massive river found its way east to the ocean.
Climate Change and the Amazon

Today the Amazon produces 20% of the Earth’s oxygen. Sadly, according to many studies, the Amazon is disappearing at a rate of about 52,000 sq kilometers per year. This large and unique forest is one of the biggest victims of biopiracy, despite Brazil’s strict environment-protection laws.The full value of the giant Amazon forest to the planet and humans is not even fully known. For instance, 25% of prescription medications were found in the Amazon rainforests, yet scientists have only tested 1% of the plants. The lush super forest holds many secrets we have yet to discover.

Sources

Anderson, Lykke E., et al, (2002) The Dynamics of Deforestation and Economic Growth in the Brazilian Amazon Cambridge: University Press

Public Broadcasting Service (www.pbs.org © 1995-2006) “Enter Into Amazonia”. Content Provided by Dr. Michael J. Balick. Retrieved May 1, 2006, from the World Wide Web: http://www.pbs.org/journeyintoamazonia/site.html

Jordan, C.F., (1989) An Amazon Rain Forest: The Structure and Function of a Nutrient Stressed Ecosystem and the Impact of Slash-and-Burn Agriculture. France, UK, & USA: Parthenon Publishing Group & United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

Sphere: Related Content

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

The Plant Ecology of Costa Rica

Freelancer — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 13:00:24 +0000

Costa Rica has one of the most diverse plant ecologies in the world; from cloud and rain forests to mangrove swamps, Costa Rica has a rich and varied plant life.

Costa Rica, 51,000 square kilometers of land situated between Panama and Nicaragua in Central America, is a small country with a huge biodiversity of plant life. It has remarkably different climates on each of its coastlines, supporting a wide variety of plant species. A mountainous range of volcanoes and high peaks cut through the center of Costa Rica, where cloud forests are dominant.

Over 10,000 species of vascular plants (the main catergory of plant species) have been recorded in Costa Rica; there are about 1,300 species of Orchids accounted for in this number. In addition, tropical rain forests of Costa Rica contain nearly 2,000 species of trees. Costa Rica is a diverse mixture of plant habitats.
The Forests of Costa Rica

Large trees, such as the silk cotton tree (Ceiba pentandra), can be found in the Parque Nacional Corcovado, in the south-western corner of Costa Rica; along both the Pacific and the Caribbean coasts there are mangrove swamps full of different species of trees, including the mangrove tree (Rhizophora Mangle).

Mangrove trees are able to grow in salty waters where other plants can not survive. Mangrove trees are important ecologically for a number of reasons:

* They protect the coast line from the erosion of the ocean
* They trap sediment which is rich in nutrients producing a high level of productivity
* They act as both spawning and nursery areas for a variety of fish species and invertebrates.

The cloud forests of Costa Rica contain trees with a diversity of ferns, mosses, orchids and bromeliads (of which the pineapple is a member). The cloud forests are an extremely wet environment and are covered in fog most of the time, in contradiction to the drier forests of north west Costa Rica. Here, the national tree of Costa Rica can be found, the Guanacaste (Enterolobium cyclocarpum). The forests consist of wide, umbrella-like canopies with cacti and spiny shrubs and vines.

The Preservation of the National Flower of Costa Rica

The most well known of Costa Rica’s orchids is the Cattleya skinneri which is the national flower of Costa Rica. It has a fuchsia-colored bloom and flowers in March. Many Costa Rican homes are covered in this particular orchid, creating a preservation problem for this beautiful plant.

Due to its popularity, the Cattleya skinneri may be extinct in 21 years, according to a 2004 report of a local environmental organization. As a result, a number of environmentalists are working together to lobby the government into controlling harvesting of the wild orchid, in an attempt to preserve Costa Rica’s national flower.
Protecting the Future of Costa Rica

Both the Rain Forest Alliance and the Tropical Science Center are also working together to sustain the forests of Costa Rica. The work involves conserving biodiversity, providing fair treatments to workers, creating business incentives and providing equity for local communities in an effort to benefit the economy. The work ensures that responsible forestry practices are maintained and the future of Costa Rica’s forests is protected.

Although a rich and diverse landscape of plants and trees, some of which are not found any where else in the world, Costa Rica has now become a major tourist destination, particularly popular with North Americans. To ensure the beauty and fragile plant ecology is preserved for generations to come, Costa Rica needs to find a balance between tourism, its major source of income, and the natural environment. Make sure bring a long your ID lanyards in case you are lost in the woods.

Sphere: Related Content

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Nature versus nurture in honeybees

Freelancer — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 12:49:55 +0000

One of the most controversial questions in biology is whether behaviour is determined by nature or nurture. A new program has been launched to shed light on this question by analyzing all sources of information relating to the complex society of Apis mellifera, the Western honeybee.

The debate raises ethical questions about the the determination of behaviour in social animals, including humans. The nature side suggests behaviour is determined by inherited genes. The nurture side argues that it depends on environmental factors, such as social interaction. The reality lies somewhere in between: environment affects the way an animal’s genome is expressed. BeeSpace, a system created at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, will pursue a deeper understanding of how genes are both inherited and environmentally responsive.

A. mellifera makes an ideal subject for this study. Honeybees have a complex social structure that is highly flexible. Workers demonstrate an age-related division of labour. Each individual assumes many different roles in her lifetime. Both heredity and environment determine what a bee does, and when she does it. These roles are affected by structural changes in the bee’s brain in response to her foraging experience.

The relationship between behaviour and heredity can be analyzed in detail because the honeybee genome has been entirely mapped.

BeeSpace will have implications for other social animals as well, as researchers study social roles that could apply to other organisms. Social interaction with in a hive can even shed light on the way humans interact in an urban environment.

Beyond studying bees as social animals, the system serves as an experiment in informatics. It will include all relevant databases and scientific literature on the social behaviour of honeybees, using new semantic technology to navigate across many sources. The system will involve an international community of biologists who study honeybees and other social organisms, and be accessible to students and educators.

BeeSpace is being funded by a five-year, $5 million grant from the National Science Foundation.

For more information on this story, read the news article at ScienceDaily.

Also visit the Institute for Genomic Ecology at UIUC, and the BeeSpace interactive website.

An unrelated website, from Univeristy of Sydney, on honeybee dance behaviour illustrates one way in which the bee genome can be studied. Honeybees have a highly evolved system for communicating the direction and quality of potential food sources. Distance is distinguished by the form of the dance. Different races of the species demonstrate distinct, well-documented dance dialects. The researchers use hybridization crosses between races to see how the genetic component affects dance behaviour.

Sphere: Related Content

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

History of “Earth Day”

Freelancer — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 16:28:24 +0000

Earth Day — April 22 — each year marks the anniversary of the birth of the modern environmental movement in 1970.

Among other things, 1970 in the United States brought with it the Kent State shootings, the advent of fiber optics, “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” Apollo 13, the Beatles’ last album, the death of Jimi Hendrix, the birth of Mariah Carey, and the meltdown of fuel rods in the Savannah River nuclear plant near Aiken, South Carolina — an incident not acknowledged for 18 years.

History of Earth Day

Participant in Earth Day, 1970.
Photo: EPA History Office

It was into such a world that the very first Earth Day was born.

Earth Day founder Gaylord Nelson, then a U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, proposed the first nationwide environmental protest “to shake up the political establishment and force this issue onto the national agenda. ” “It was a gamble,” he recalls, “but it worked.”

At the time, Americans were slurping leaded gas through massive V8 sedans. Industry belched out smoke and sludge with little fear of legal consequences or bad press. Air pollution was commonly accepted as the smell of prosperity. Environment was a word that appeared more often in spelling bees than on the evening news.

Earth Day 1970 turned that all around.

On April 22, 20 million Americans took to the streets, parks, and auditoriums to demonstrate for a healthy, sustainable environment. Denis Hayes, the national coordinator, and his youthful staff organized massive coast-to-coast rallies. Thousands of colleges and universities organized protests against the deterioration of the environment. Groups that had been fighting against oil spills, polluting factories and power plants, raw sewage, toxic dumps, pesticides, freeways, the loss of wilderness, and the extinction of wildlife suddenly realized they shared common values.

Denis Hayes – Honorary Chair, Earth Day Network

History of Earth DayEarth Day 1970 achieved a rare political alignment, enlisting support from Republicans and Democrats, rich and poor, city slickers and farmers, tycoons and labor leaders. The first Earth Day led to the creation of the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the passage of the Clean Air, Clean Water, and Endangered Species acts.

Sen. Nelson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom — the highest honor given to civilians in the United States — for his role as Earth Day founder.

As 1990 approached, a group of environmental leaders asked Denis Hayes to organize another big campaign. This time, Earth Day went global, mobilizing 200 million people in 141 countries and lifting the status of environmental issues on to the world stage. Earth Day 1990 gave a huge boost to recycling efforts worldwide and helped pave the way for the 1992 United Nations Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.

As the millennium approached, Hayes agreed to spearhead another campaign, this time focused on global warming and a push for clean energy. Earth Day 2000 combined the big-picture feistiness of the first Earth Day with the international grassroots activism of Earth Day 1990. For 2000, Earth Day had the Internet to help link activists around the world. By the time April 22 rolled around, 5,000 environmental groups around the world were on board, reaching out to hundreds of millions of people in a record 184 countries. Events varied: A talking drum chain traveled from village to village in Gabon, Africa, for example, while hundreds of thousands of people gathered on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., USA.

EPA Administrator William K. Reilly with former Senator Gaylord Nelson, Earth Day 1990. Photo: EPA History Office

Earth Day 2000 sent the message loud and clear that citizens the world ’round wanted quick and decisive action on clean energy.

Now, the fight for a clean environment continues. We invite you to be a part of this history and a part of Earth Day. Discover energy you didn’t even know you had. Feel it rumble through the grass roots under your feet and the technology at your fingertips. Channel it into building a clean, healthy, diverse world for generations to come.

Source: http://www.earthday.net

Sphere: Related Content

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Changing Global Nitrogen Cycle Impacting Human Health

Freelancer — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 20:33:01 +0000

Despite greatly increasing food production for humans, the growing use of nitrogen as a nutrient is affecting people’s health far beyond just the benefits of growing more crops, according to a new University of Colorado at Boulder-led study.

Study leader Alan Townsend of CU-Boulder’s Institute for Arctic and Alpine Research said changes in the global nitrogen cycle, while beneficial in increasing crop growth, appear to pose a growing health risk. Roughly half of the inorganic nitrogen ever used on the planet has occurred in the past 15 years.

An obvious, positive aspect of using nitrogen as a fertilizer has been a huge increase in food production in poor nations, reducing hunger and malnutrition, he said. Although nitrogen is the most abundant of Earth’s atmospheric gases, it must be converted to chemically usable forms like nitrate or ammonium. In the absence of humans, this happens during lightning strikes or more commonly through microbes.

“The major global changes in the nitrogen cycle have occurred because humans now convert more nitrogen to such usable forms than all natural processes combined,” he said. “The synthesis of nitrogen fertilizers accounts for most of this change. But the overuse of nitrogen fertilizers can lead to a number of problems, including air and water pollution.”

So far, most nitrogen studies have focused on problems such as losses in biodiversity, increased acid rain and changes in coastal ocean ecology that include oxygen-poor “dead zones” like those seen in the Gulf of Mexico.

However, excess nitrogen also can be a health concern for humans in many ways, including respiratory ailments, heart disease and several cancers, said Townsend, who also is an assistant professor in CU-Boulder’s ecology and evolutionary biology department.

“Ecological feedbacks to excess nitrogen can inhibit crop growth, increase allergenic pollen production and potentially affect the dynamics of several vector-borne diseases, including West Nile virus, malaria and cholera,” the researchers wrote. A paper on the subject appeared in the June 2 issue of Frontiers in Ecology.

The project was funded by the Andrew Mellon Foundation.

Co-authors on the paper are from Cornell, Harvard and Princeton universities, the Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory, the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder and the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy in Minneapolis. Other co-authors are from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, the New England School of Acupuncture in Watertown, Mass., and Visteon Corp. in Sterling Heights, Mich.

“On the bright side, there are solutions to these problems,” said Townsend. “Too much fertilizer is being used in developed countries, while in some impoverished countries, additional fertilizer is needed. This is something that can be changed.”

In the United States, for example, fertilizer-intensive crops are common and more fertilizer than is needed for maximum crop yields often is used. Reducing fertilizer also would lessen crop pollution to our waterways and air, he said.

In addition, the use of fertilizer in modern industrial nations is not optimized for the production of the healthiest food, Townsend said. Crops like corn largely become food for domestic animals, leading to further nitrogen losses to the environment, disparities in world food distribution and a growing tendency for unhealthy diets even in wealthy nations, the researchers concluded.

In the United States, more than half of the grain produced is fed to animals, and corn is used much more widely as a sweetener than for human consumption. Meat consumption by humans has doubled worldwide since 1960, and excess meat consumption has been linked to numerous health issues, including heart disease.

In addition, increased nitrogen pouring into the world’s oceans can cause algal blooms that can harm fish, shellfish and humans. On land, ozone, a major pollutant produced with high amounts of nitrogen oxides, causes numerous health problems as well as billions of dollars of crop damage, according to the research team.

“We believe the greatest net health benefits come from using nitrogen at moderate levels,” said Townsend. “Making and using it at higher levels does not lead to parallel increases in benefits, but does greatly exacerbate environmental and health problems.”

University Of Colorado At Boulder. June 2003.

Sphere: Related Content

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

‘Live Fast, Die Young’ Applies To Forests, Too

Freelancer — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 14:29:06 +0000

Forests provide humans with economically important and often irreplaceable products and services, and affect global climate by acting as sources and sinks of heat-trapping carbon dioxide. Yet the possible responses of forests to ongoing environmental changes are poorly understood.

In the most recent issue of Ecology Letters, Stephenson and van Mantgem show that birth and death rates of trees vary in parallel with global patterns of forest productivity. In less productive forests, such as coniferous forests growing at high latitudes, a century or more can pass before half of all trees die and are replaced with new growth.

In contrast, in the world’s most productive forests – tropical forests growing on fertile soils – half of all trees die and are replaced by new growth in only thirty years. The faster turnover of trees means that the world’s most productive forests may also be those likely to respond most rapidly – positively or negatively – to environmental changes.

Blackwell Publishing Ltd.. April 2005.

Sphere: Related Content

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Riparian Habitats Preferred By Both Native And Exotic Species

Freelancer — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 14:22:06 +0000

As Rebecca Brown kayaked down the Nolichucky River in North Carolina one summer, she followed a path similar to many of her own study subjects. Seeds and other propagules often float downstream before settling along riverbanks. Rampant with change, these areas offer a nutrient-rich location for new plants, yet pose the danger of sweeping vegetation away in a flood. It is this high volatility that makes the area resource rich and perfect for invasive and native plants to put down their roots. In a study presented in January’s Ecology, researchers Rebecca Brown and Robert Peet found areas subject to frequent flooding also showed a higher number of invasive exotic plants than upland regions outside of floodplains.

Mild to low-intensity disturbances, such as a small flood from a rainstorm every year, or larger floods every few years, create space and make nutrients available, allowing new plants to grow. Scientists call this an immigration process. In contrast to extinction processes such as competition, extreme disturbances, and environmental stresses, the immigration process sets the stage for new life.

“Community composition is driven by immigration. Areas disturbed frequently, such as riversides and roadsides, are more receptive to propagules from native species and also prove to be just as hospitable for exotics,” said Brown.

Brown and Peet, along with a team of field assistants, traversed the countryside collecting data along rivers and uplands in the southern Appalachian forests of North Carolina to compare the relationship between exotic and native species richness. Combining information from the Carolina Vegetation Survey database and the United States Department of Agriculture Plants database, the duo studied riparian areas within 100-year flood zones and uplands outside of the floodplains. They also took into account differences in soil pH, geology, and other factors, recording both herbs and trees in almost 1200 plots.

The researchers found species diversity to be significantly higher for both native and exotic species in the riparian areas than in upland areas.

“Riparian areas have roughly 40 times greater mean exotic species per plot then upland areas,” said Brown.

Even when examining areas with comparable amounts of light availability and soil fertility the results remained fairly similar. As flood frequency decreased, the number of exotic species decreased. But species richness — the variety of species — for native and exotics also decreased. According to the researchers these results may be a combination of fewer seeds and less disturbances, leading to fewer opportunities for exotics to invade the upland sites.

Brown and Peet also looked at the results in terms of scale.

Previous research suggests that high species diversity should reduce invasibility because the more species compete in an area, the fewer resources are available to incoming species. Brown and Peet’s study validated this concept at the small scale. However it did not hold true when they compared diversity of exotic and native species in large scale areas. Brown explains why this is so:

“It is possible that we see this phenomenon only at small scales because plants compete at small scales, while at large scales, flooding, variations in seed supply, or variations in resource availability allow the immigration of all types of new species, native and exotic, into the community.”

Ecology is a peer-reviewed journal published twelve times a year by the Ecological Society of America (ESA). Copies of the above article are available free of charge to the press through the Society’s Public Affairs Office. Members of the press may also obtain copies of ESA’s entire family of publications, which includes Ecology, Ecological Applications, and Ecological Monographs. Others interested in copies of articles should contact the Reprint Department at the address in the masthead.

Founded in 1915, the Ecological Society of America (ESA) is a scientific, non-profit, organization with over 7800 members. Through ESA reports, journals, membership research, and expert testimony to Congress, ESA seeks to promote the responsible application of ecological data and principles to the solution of environmental problems. For more information about the Society and its activities, access ESA’s web site at: http://www.esa.org .

Ecological Society Of America. February 2003.

Sphere: Related Content

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

The Vanishing of the Arctic Ice Cap

Freelancer — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 11:56:20 +0000

By Eric McLamb

Not only is the Arctic ice cap shrinking, it is shrinking at a pace that places its disappearance two to three decades ahead of the gloomiest previous forecasts. It is now generally predicted that the Arctic ice cap will totally disappear in 20 -- 25 years, leaving the Arctic Ocean totally free of summer ice as early as the summer of 2030. Some scientists even predict that Arctic summer sea ice will totally disappear as early as 2015. The previous most dismal prediction of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had the Arctic ice cap vanishing by the year 2050.
The Arctic ice cap reached its smallest extent ever in 2007 (above, top), about 50 percent of its size in the 1950s. The image beneath it shows the ice cap’s average area in 1979-1981. (NASA images)
Scientists have long known that Earth’s northern (Arctic) and southern (Antarctic) ice caps would be the first harbingers of global warming, and now we are seeing it. Even though the Arctic ice cap has not yet shrunken quite as much this summer as it did in the summer of 2007 when it reached its smallest size ever, it has lost about 50 percent of its volume and coverage since the 1950s when ship and aircraft records were used to gather Arctic ice data instead of satellites. Since 1979, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the rate of sea ice decline has been more than 10 percent per decade. The most dramatic losses in sea ice cover have taken place since 2003.

The smallest extent ever recorded of the Arctic ice cap was in the summer of 2007 at 1.6 million square miles. This is down from three million square miles in 1980, a 47.1 percent loss of sea ice. The previous record low was set in the summer of 2005 when the ice extent dropped to 2.05 million square miles.

The Arctic Ice Cap Is Also Thinning

The Arctic ice cap’s area of coverage is not only shrinking. It is also getting thinner. It occurs all across the Arctic Ocean. Each year, as the cycle goes, Arctic ice freezes in the winter and reaches its maximum size, or extent, in early March and is at its smallest point in September. In 1991, the summer Arctic ice was about 10.2 feet thick (ice pack thickness is measured from sea level to the bottom of the ice pack). Since 2001, the thickest areas of Arctic ice have thinned to three feet, less than a third of the 1991 ice cap and half of its 2001 thickness. In some areas, the thickness is six inches or less. Yet, the ice above the sea level (called “freeboard”) in the spring of 2008 is about two to four inches less than it was in spring 2007.

The old ice, ice that did not melt each year, would reach 13-14 feet in thickness over large areas. Ice that forms in one winter season will reach only about three feet. Almost all of the old ice is gone.

Global Warming and Arctic Ice

It is too simple to blame global warming for this occurrence. Earth has been going through dramatic climate changes since it formed over 4.5 billion years ago. But climate records since the 1920s tell us that the greatest cause of global warming today is the introduction of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere by human activity. Combine this with the loss of sea ice, warming Arctic land masses, and the flow of warmer ocean currents into the Arctic region and you have an area where the temperatures are rising at twice the pace it is anywhere else in the world. Just consider this: The heat energy that had been reflected back into space by the Arctic ice cap is now being absorbed by the ocean and land masses beneath where the ice previously existed.
Birth of the Arctic Ice Cap

The Arctic Ice Cap formed over the Arctic Ocean about 50 million years ago, virtually covering the entire sea with a sheet of ice. As the continents continued to move, climatic changes brought about by shifts in water and air currents caused the Earth to gradually cool down. It was formed from the fresh water run-offs of the Cenozoic Ice Age glaciers and had been stable until now. Witness the breakdown of the largest single block of ice in the Arctic, the 3,000 year-old Ward Hunt Ice Shelf. It began to break up in the year 2000 and is now totally breaking apart.

Environmental Unity

So what of it? This is where the dynamics of environmental unity come into focus. What happens with one element of our environment will impact other elements. But let’s first deal with anticipated rising sea levels as a result of the melting Arctic ice. Since most of the ice pack is already submerged in the Arctic Ocean (about 90% of the total volume) and is already displacing that volume of ocean water, there would be very little impact. The only Arctic ice that is not submerged is the very thin freeboard ice (above sea level). Even a complete melting of the Arctic ice cap would only result in a small increase in sea water level.

As the Arctic ice breaks up and recedes, a new era of commerce will open for commercial and personal shipping. But the major concern will the increase of fresh, cold water into the marine environment and into the oceanic currents carrying water into the warmer southern oceans. (NASA photo)

The major concern, however, would be the increase of fresh, cold water into the marine environment. This would alter ecosystems and the food chain dependent on the saline waters and would funnel more cold water into the oceanic conveyer belt. As a result, you would see a global climate change due to the introduction of the additional cold water into the southern oceans, and you would see a displacement of plant and animals species dependent on the more saline ecosystems. Some animal species will, of course, retreat to the land-based ecosystems. New and migrating marine species would flourish in the nutrient rich waters of the Arctic.

Consider shipping… as the ice cap recedes, shipping lanes between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans will become available to commerce and passenger transportation, opening up substantial economic advantages. But then again, at what cost? Can we reverse the global warming patterns that would help restore and maintain the Arctic ice for another 50 million years? Do we want to? Can we let it revert back to an ice-less ocean (if we have a choice), as it was before it formed 50 million years ago? Although most scientists predict the Arctic ice cap will be totally gone in the 21st century, there are still some who say it does not have to be that way. Adaptations are part of the continuing circles of life, and life will adapt.

But on the other end of the planet…. that’s different story. Coming soon… The Antarctic Ice Deluge.
Did you know….?

* There is no land anywhere underneath the Arctic Ice Cap… never has been. It’s all ocean.
*

The warmest month in the Arctic is July when the mean temperature is 32 degrees Fahrenheit. Its coldest month is February when the average temperature drops to a super frigid minus 31 degrees Fahrenheit.
*

Greenland, which is technically part of the continent of North America, is a Danish province that lies between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans. It is not part of the Arctic ice cap, but it is the second largest ice body in the world just after Antarctica. It is 80 percent covered by an ice sheet covering roughly 660,000 square miles and six to about 10 feet thick. This does not include the 30-39,000 square miles of glaciers and small ice caps on its perimeter. If all of the Greenland ice were to melt, it is predicted that it would result in a global sea level rise of 23.6 feet (Wikipedia).
*

Global sea-level has risen about 400 feet since the peak of the last ice age about 18,000 years ago. Most of the rise occurred before 6,000 years ago. (Wikipedia)
*

In the summer of 2007, Russia planted its national flag on the ocean floor at the North Pole claiming roughly 460,000 square miles of Arctic waters.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=06nYSrjFNB0

Sphere: Related Content

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.