Effects of global warming commonplace in the Arctic
It was -5 C in Yellowknife today, Dec. 3, what most people up here would consider a pretty darn nice day for this time of year, if highly unusual.
There’s a digital clock downtown on the main drag that shows the time, date, temperature, where to shop, that sort of thing. In late November of 2007, I had the girlfriend take a photo of me standing under that sign with the temperature showing -33 C. So this mild weather is a pleasant change from the seasonal norm.
The year before, also in November, I walked along the north shore of Frobisher Bay in Nunavut looking out over the Eastern Arctic Ocean. The bay was still in a liquid state, much to my surprise. I asked a local when the bay usually froze up.
A month ago, he said, adding he’d never seen it so mild for that time of year in his life. He was an old, old man.
I read today that polar bears in Northern Manitoba are resorting to cannibalism. Andy Derocher, a scientist who has studied polar bears in the Western Hudson Bay area for over 25 years, told reporters the water usually freezes by mid-November, allowing the bears to travel over the ice and hunt seals. But the warmer than normal temperatures are preventing them from hunting on the ice that’s usually there by this time of year, Derocher said.
“The cannibalism events are really just a manifestation of the effects of global warming on the bears,” he said. “It's an act of desperation, it's what they do when they can't find something else to eat.
“Down the road, if this sort of continued erosion of habitat continues . . . we could start to see very serious mortality rates.”
There are only a little more than 20,000 polar bears on Earth, with 60 per cent of them in the Canadian Arctic. “Serious mortality rates” in such a small population base could mean their extinction well within our lifetime. And what’s happening to polar bears is just the tip of the iceberg if things don’t change and fast.
I’m no scientist, nor am I a politician, but I don’t need groups of either to tell me whether global warming is real. I know it’s real. People in the Arctic don’t need to be convinced global warming is real because we’ve lived with it and seen it’s effects first hand for years.
Hopefully those scientists and politicians going to Copenhagen won’t waste time arguing whether global warming is real or not and focus on how to fix this mess we’ve created before we destroy our planet and ourselves.
There’s a digital clock downtown on the main drag that shows the time, date, temperature, where to shop, that sort of thing. In late November of 2007, I had the girlfriend take a photo of me standing under that sign with the temperature showing -33 C. So this mild weather is a pleasant change from the seasonal norm.
The year before, also in November, I walked along the north shore of Frobisher Bay in Nunavut looking out over the Eastern Arctic Ocean. The bay was still in a liquid state, much to my surprise. I asked a local when the bay usually froze up.
A month ago, he said, adding he’d never seen it so mild for that time of year in his life. He was an old, old man.
I read today that polar bears in Northern Manitoba are resorting to cannibalism. Andy Derocher, a scientist who has studied polar bears in the Western Hudson Bay area for over 25 years, told reporters the water usually freezes by mid-November, allowing the bears to travel over the ice and hunt seals. But the warmer than normal temperatures are preventing them from hunting on the ice that’s usually there by this time of year, Derocher said.
“The cannibalism events are really just a manifestation of the effects of global warming on the bears,” he said. “It's an act of desperation, it's what they do when they can't find something else to eat.
“Down the road, if this sort of continued erosion of habitat continues . . . we could start to see very serious mortality rates.”
There are only a little more than 20,000 polar bears on Earth, with 60 per cent of them in the Canadian Arctic. “Serious mortality rates” in such a small population base could mean their extinction well within our lifetime. And what’s happening to polar bears is just the tip of the iceberg if things don’t change and fast.
I’m no scientist, nor am I a politician, but I don’t need groups of either to tell me whether global warming is real. I know it’s real. People in the Arctic don’t need to be convinced global warming is real because we’ve lived with it and seen it’s effects first hand for years.
Hopefully those scientists and politicians going to Copenhagen won’t waste time arguing whether global warming is real or not and focus on how to fix this mess we’ve created before we destroy our planet and ourselves.
posted by Street Wise Guy | 9:31 PM
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