Although Arctic sea ice has continually declined since satellite records began in 1979, a new study makes a startling (or perhaps warming) prediction: by the end of this century the Arctic’s sea ice could disappear during the summer months, raising the threat of extinction for polar bears and other icefall species.
Forty years are not a long time in the grand scheme of things, so it is somewhat surprising how much the world itself has changed since the early 1980s.
The last ice sheet is the surface of ice that is about 13 foot meters thick.
The study focused on what the authors refer to as the ‘Last Ice Area,’ from where we currently stand – an area that sprawls over 1 million square miles across northern Canada and Greenland.
Summer ice – and the polar bears and seals that depend on it – could disappear by 2100 below the most pessimistic scenario in which emissions continue to grow at their present rate, a recent study suggests.
But if carbon emissions persist at the current pace, the study cautions,”ice-obligate ecologies will not survive.”
According to Live Science, this fast changing habitat could lead to polar bears becoming extinct or to a larger blending with grizzly bears (Ursus arctos horribilis), whose territories are shifting north because of heating.
While the Legislative Assembly of Nunavut and the Oikiqtani Inuit Association were strongly in support of Tuvaijuittuq’s conservation, adjacent areas of the Arctic preferred to focus on mine extraction instead of animal and environmental protection.
