Arctic seals vulnerable to fast pace of change
Brendan Kelly with seal search Labs
Credit: Brendan Kelly
Scientists at work in the Arctic say the pace of change there is now so rapid that some creatures might not be able to adapt.
For example, Arctic ringed seals give birth and nurse their young in caves dug out on the snow-covered ice.
Brendan Kelly: So what we’re seeing with climate change is increasingly early snow melts, causing those layers to collapse before the pups are independent, when they’re still dependent on their mothers for nursing.
That’s research biologist Brendan Kelly at the University of Alaska.
Brendan Kelly: They’re vulnerable to freezing to death when it gets cold again after the snows collapse. The other thing, of course, is that the young pups are visible to predators when they’re lying out in the open without snow cover.
Kelly said it’s hard to answer the question of whether Arctic ringed seals are in danger of extinction.
Brendan Kelly: All of the species associated with sea ice are at the very least going to have to adapt to not only a new physical environment but a new biological environment.
People living in the Arctic have depended on seals for thousands of years as sources of food and clothing. As sea ice continues to shrink and Arctic creatures disappear and interbreed, people, too, will have to adapt.
Our thanks today to NASA during the International Polar Year.
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The ice has melted in the past. This year it is back with a vengence. It is called a cycle.
By the way, many of the so-called arctic species are fairly recent adaptations of warmer weather creatures. This is especially true of the polar bear. If bears adapt to cold, I’ll bet they can adapt to warmer weather generating a greater food supply. Life loves warmth, from bacteria to humans.
The earth has never had a static climate and does not have one now. It warms and cools. We just don’t live long enough to identify these cycles. Scientists have said that some of the climate cycles last over one hundred thousand years. Our written history is not dependable more than a couple of hundred years and doesn’t exist at all before 4000 or so BC.
It is absolutely insane to think we know what the climate was “supposed to be” if not for the advent of the carbon age.
We have much greater dangers than climate change for the warmer. COlder weather will adversly effect food production and will require much more heating for humans to survive. Collectivism will destroy economies and will cause widespread famine and death. I submit the upcoming elections are more important than worrying about the looming specter of global warming. The real trouble is, there is no real difference between the four folks left in the race for President. Maybe good sense could be applied to Congress thereby nullifying the Chief Executive.
We can only hope.
Rest assured, there is plenty of sea ice. Some scientific organization said sea ice is increasing at about 30%/year. Remember China has seen the heaviest snowfall in 100 years, the midwest has seen much snow, cities are running out of road salt. The average temperature of the last year has more than offset the warming of the last 100 years.
If we keep this Environmental garbage up to much longer, your children 30 years from now will be forced to speak chinese—The Environmental community is responsible for more economic devastation in this country than all of the pork barrel spending congress could have ever thought of legislating.
When you are paying 10 bucks for a pack of tortillas or 30 dollars for a bakers dozen for corn on the cob you’ll be sorry.
It’s time you start picking out your cot in the chinese concentration camp.
im so bored of homework :P
Me too it stinks.