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Polar bears could be decades from extinction, a survey into global warming has found. Steve Connor reports on the crisis that threatens the polar ice-cap

Polar bears, the biggest land carnivores on Earth, face extinction this century if the Arctic continues to melt at its present rate, a study into global warming has found. The sea ice around the North Pole on which the bears depend for hunting is shrinking so swiftly it could disappear during the summer months by the end of the century, the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ICIA) says.

Scientists in the study believe the survival of the estimated 22,000 polar bears in the region is hanging by a slender thread as they suffer the double whammy of chemical pollution and dwindling feeding territories. Polar bears traditionally hunt on floating sea ice for seals and other quarry. But the ice has retreated significantly during summer, so the carnivores are having to swim further from one floe to another in search of quarry.

As a result of this extra effort, many bears are failing to build up the necessary fat reserves during the important hunting period of spring and early summer to take them through the bitterly cold winter months when females nurse their young. The sea ice in the Hudson Bay area of Canada, for instance, breaks up about two and a half weeks earlier than it did 30 years ago, Ian Stirling of the Canadian Wildlife Service said.

The rapid and unprecedented shrinkage of the ice, and the extra burden it places on the animals, has resulted in the polar bears here weighing, on average, 55lb less than they did in the 1970s. And the bears have long become more than a nuisance in Churchill, Manitoba, on the shore of Hudson Bay. They are frequently tranquilised and flown back north.

Scientists at the World Wildlife Fund said that, if that continues, many of the polar bears in the Hudson Bay area will be so thin within the next 10 years that they could become infertile. Lara Hansen, chief scientist at the WWF, said: "If the population stops reproducing, that's the end of it."

Separate studies have already shown that toxic pollutants are building up in the fat of polar bears in a way that could affect their ability to reproduce. WWF scientists say these toxins are affecting the bears' immunity to infections.

The ACIA is the product of four years' work by more than 250 scientists from Britain, the United States and many other industrialised countries. Its 139-page report, presented to a scientific conference this week in Reykjavik, found climate change is affecting the Arctic more than many other regions. For instance, scientists estimate that the polar region is warming at up to 10 times the rate of the world as a whole.

In Alaska, western Canada and eastern Russia, average winter temperatures have risen as much as 3C or 4C in the past 50 years, and they are projected to increase by a further 7C, or 13C, over the next 100 years.

More: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/env ... ory=581579

CNN responds with their own article. Again, no one is giving any credit to the cycle of our SUN.



Study: Arctic warming at twice the global rate

Species, including polar bears, may go extinct as ice melts

OSLO, Norway (Reuters) -- Global warming is heating the Arctic almost twice as fast as the rest of the planet in a thaw that threatens millions of livelihoods and could wipe out polar bears by 2100, an eight-nation report said on Monday.

The biggest survey to date of the Arctic climate, by 250 scientists, said the accelerating melt could be a foretaste of wider disruptions from a build-up of human emissions of heat-trapping gases in Earth's atmosphere.

The "Arctic climate is now warming rapidly and much larger changes are projected," according to the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA), funded by the United States, Canada, Russia, Denmark, Iceland, Sweden, Norway and Finland.

Arctic temperatures are rising at almost twice the global average and could leap 4-7 Celsius (7-13 Fahrenheit) by 2100, roughly twice the global average projected by U.N. reports. Siberia and Alaska have already warmed by 2-3 C since the 1950s.

Possible benefits like more productive fisheries, easier access to oil and gas deposits or trans-Arctic shipping routes would be outweighed by threats to indigenous peoples and the habitats of animals and plants.

Sea ice around the North Pole, for instance, could almost disappear in summer by the end of the century. The extent of the ice has shrunk by 15 percent to 20 percent in the past 30 years.

"Polar bears are unlikely to survive as a species if there is an almost complete loss of summer sea-ice cover," the report said. On land, creatures like lemmings, caribou, reindeer and snowy owls are being squeezed north into a narrower range.

Fossil fuels blamed

The report mainly blames the melt on gases from fossil fuels burned in cars, factories and power plants. The Arctic warms faster than the global average because dark ground and water, once exposed, traps more heat than reflective snow and ice.

More: http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/science/11 ... index.html

Arctic Melting Fast; May Swamp U.S. Coasts by 2099

Brian Handwerk

for National Geographic News

November 9, 2004



Scientists have determined that the ice in Greenland and the Arctic is melting so rapidly that much of it could be gone by the end of the century. (See photos from the Arctic.)

The results could be catastrophic for polar people and animals, while low-lying lands as far away as Florida could be inundated by rising sea levels. (Read a story, see a map of how warming may toast Florida's coast).

See photos and maps and more:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... r_ice.html