Polar bear population seen declining

NF Reporter · 09-07-2007, 11:55 PM

AP - Two-thirds of the world's polar bears will be killed off by 2050 — and the entire population gone from Alaska — because of thinning sea ice from global warming in the Arctic, government scientists forecast Friday.

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waltky · 09-11-2007, 05:57 PM

Penguins dyin' out too!...

Colony of Antarctic penguins nears extinction
Sept 11, 2007 - Expert ties sharp decline in breeding pairs to warming temperatures

Quote:

William Fraser remembers when the ice floes and rocky outcrops near this U.S. outpost were thick with Adélie penguins and the constant, almost deafening roar of their calls made it impossible to hold a conversation. “You could not go anywhere without seeing hundreds to thousands of Adélies,” says the ecologist.

Today, the Adélies outnumber people in this icy patch of the world by 100 to 1. The ratio sounds impressive until Fraser notes that the penguin population has shrunk by 80 percent since he began studying it in 1974, and that he expects the knee-high birds to be extinct in eight years.

What's to blame? Fraser, president of the Polar Ocean Research Group, says global warming is part of the problem because it has made it harder for the penguins to forage and breed. When he first arrived at Palmer Station, Fraser says, the climate was cold and relatively dry. Now it is warmer and wet, “a bit like southeast Alaska," he says. "That environment did not exist at Palmer 30 years ago.”

Peninsula problem

waltky · 10-19-2007, 02:37 AM

Caribou too!...

Warming causing Arctic stress for caribou, sea ice, permafrost
Friday, October 19, 2007 WASHINGTON -- The Arctic is under increasing stress from warming temperatures as shrubs colonize the tundra, changing wildlife habitat and local climate conditions, researchers said.

Quote:

Sea ice fell well below the previous record, caribou are declining in many areas and permafrost is melting, according to the annual update of the State of the Arctic report, released Wednesday. "The bottom line is we are seeing some rapid changes in the Arctic," said Richard Spinrad, assistant administrator for oceanic and atmospheric research at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Scientists have expected polar regions to feel the first impacts of global warming, and the 2006 State of the Arctic report provided a benchmark for tracking changes. Wednesday's follow-up was the first update.

Winter and spring temperatures were all above average throughout the whole Arctic, said James Overland of NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory. "This is unusual and looks like the beginning of a signal from global warming," Overland said in a telephone briefing. If you go back 100 years, it would be warm in one part of the Arctic and cold in another, Overland said. "We're not getting that now." Sea ice cover this year is 23 percent smaller than the past record low set in 2005 and 39 percent less than average, said Jacqueline A. Richter-Menge of the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory in New Hampshire. She noted that the amount of older ice in the Arctic is significantly reduced, which makes it much more sensitive to change.

Vladimir E. Romanovsky of the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks said the warming is affecting the permafrost in Siberia, Alaska and other regions. "This similarity of very different regions shows the changes are not local, they are on at least a hemispherical scale," Romanovsky said. Mike Gill, of the Circumpolar Biodiversity Monitoring Program in Canada said the largest declines in caribou are centered over Canada and parts of Alaska. The herds are sensitive to changes in their range and sometimes have problems migrating in changing conditions, meaning that calving occurs before they get to new feeding grounds, resulting in higher mortality. The tundra itself is "shrubifying," he said, and the increased shrub cover over many regions affects habitat and local climate, since it tends to absorb more solar radiation.

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bizwiz · 10-20-2007, 10:58 PM

It is very sad to see animals go extinct. I hope governments do more to protect the endangered species in their respective countries.

h1dro · 11-04-2007, 06:08 PM

As cuddly and cute as these animals are, don't you believe that SOME animals were meant to 'die out'? o_0? "Survival of the fittest" Just thinking about it from an evolutionary standpoint.