Arctic sea ice is photographed in 2011 during NASA's ICESCAPE mission, a shipborne investigation to study how changing conditions in the Arctic affect the ocean's chemistry and ecosystems. Kathryn Hansen / NASA
A recent Science Magazine feature blamed an underwater heat blob for exacerbating sea ice loss as it proclaimed what many Arctic scientists already know: Arctic sea ice is racing toward its demise.
<p>Even without the blob, <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/earth-sea-ice-melt-study-2647072206.html" target="_self">ice levels were already catastrophically low</a>.</p><p>"There can be little doubt that the vast majority of Earth's ice loss is a direct consequence of climate warming," UK scientists from Leeds and Edinburgh universities and University College London researching the massive ice loss wrote in their <a href="https://tc.copernicus.org/preprints/tc-2020-232/" target="_blank">review paper,</a> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/aug/23/earth-lost-28-trillion-tonnes-ice-30-years-global-warming" target="_blank">The Guardian</a> reported.</p><p>One study from the University of Copenhagen determined that Arctic sea ice is melting faster than <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change/" target="_self">climate</a> models had predicted because they use a "slow and steady" temperature increase model for the Arctic, but warming is actually happening at a more rapid pace, reported <a href="https://www.barrons.com/news/arctic-sea-ice-melting-faster-than-forecast-01597759205" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Barron's</a>. <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/arctic-wildfires-climate-crisis-2646355896.html" target="_self">The Arctic is warming at least twice as fast as the rest of the globe</a>, a different study found, and this is speeding sea ice loss.<span></span></p><p>"We have been clearly underestimating the rate of temperature increases in the atmosphere nearest to the sea level, which has ultimately caused sea ice to disappear faster than we had anticipated," University of Copenhagen professor and researcher Jens Hesselbjerg Christensen told <a href="https://www.barrons.com/news/arctic-sea-ice-melting-faster-than-forecast-01597759205" target="_blank">Barron's</a>.</p>
<p>The last time the Arctic Ocean saw such unusually high temperatures was during the previous ice age, Barron's reported. Christensen warned that scientists had yet to realize the significance of this steep temperature rise, <a href="https://www.futurity.org/arctic-sea-ice-temperature-climate-change-2424682-2/" target="_blank">Futurity</a> reported.<br></p><p>"We have looked at the climate models analyzed and assessed by the UN Climate Panel. Only those models based on the worst-case scenario, with the highest carbon dioxide emissions, come close to what our temperature measurements show over the past 40 years, from 1979 to today," Christensen told Futurity.</p><p>A third set of researchers also recently determined that <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/greenland-ice-sheet-melting-2647005347.html" target="_self">Greenland's ice sheet has reached the "point of no return,</a>" and that it would continue to shrink even if global warming were to end today, <a href="https://www.barrons.com/news/arctic-sea-ice-melting-faster-than-forecast-01597759205" target="_blank">Barron's</a> reported.</p><p>None of this bodes well for the sea ice. September is when the ice usually reaches its annual minimum, and this year's extent is scheduled to be among the lowest on record, <a href="https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/08/growing-underwater-heat-blob-speeds-demise-arctic-sea-ice" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Science Magazine</a> reported. The sum of this evidence has led some <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/arctic-sea-ice-melt-2035-2646947902.html" target="_self">scientists to posture a total loss of Arctic sea ice by 2035</a>.</p>
<p>"It's definitely a when, not an if," Alek Petty, a polar scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, told <a href="https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/08/growing-underwater-heat-blob-speeds-demise-arctic-sea-ice" target="_blank">Science Magazine</a>.<span></span></p><p>Unfortunately, many of these dire predictions do not take into account what's happening below the water's surface, where a heat blob is melting sea ice from below as the warmer climate assails it from above.<br></p><p>The Arctic Ocean enjoys an "unusual temperature inversion" where deeper water is warmer than surface waters, according to Science Magazine. Chilly winter air and buoyant, cold freshwater coming off the Eurasian continent help to keep the ice's surface cold and the underside from melting under the sun, Science Magazine explained.</p><p>The warmer, saltier Atlantic Ocean water congregates in a deep heat blob that was presumed "safely separated" from the sea ice, but a recent study published in the <a href="https://journals.ametsoc.org/jcli/article/33/18/8107/353233/Weakening-of-Cold-Halocline-Layer-Exposes-Sea-Ice" target="_blank">Journal of Climate</a> found that the blob is growing, migrating vertically, and melting the ice from below.</p>
<p>The study found that as brighter, reflective sea ice melts, darker water flows in to take its place. That water then absorbs more heat and sinks down to the blob, where it causes the blob to grow and warm even further.</p><p>Measurements indicated that the blob, usually found 150 meters below the sea ice or deeper, has moved up to within 80 meters of the surface. Water turbulence can then cause some of that blob heat to reach the sea ice and melt it, Igor Polyakov, an oceanographer at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, told Science Magazine.</p><p>"This heat has become, regionally, the key forcing for sea ice decay," Polyakov said.</p><p>Scientists now think the blob has enough heat to melt the Arctic's ice three to four times over, and estimate that it could "devour the ice from below" if the blob ever reaches the surface sea ice, Science Magazine reported.</p>
<p>The process is called "<a href="https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2020GL088036" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Atlantification,</a>" and has already been observed in the Barents Sea north of Norway, where warm Atlantic waters have risen up to melt sea ice from below, even during cold winter months, according to Science Magazine and a study published in <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-020-0772-6" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Nature Climate Change</a>. Scientists expect Atlantification to continue to decimate sea ice throughout the Arctic as the heat blob grows and rises.</p><p>The downstream effect of this massive melt would be felt in ways that are still unknown. Previous studies have linked Arctic ice loss to a number of different global phenomena, such as <a href="https://earthsky.org/earth/arctic-ice-melt-changing-major-ocean-current-beaufort-gyre" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">changing ocean currents</a> and <a href="https://sfist.com/2020/01/27/new-study-finds-direct-link-between-melting-arctic-ice-and-extreme-weather-in-california/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">extreme weather in California</a>.</p>
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Scientists and environmental advocates have long known that microfibers rub off clothing in the washing machine. Wachiwit / iStock / Getty Images Plus
What is the environmental footprint of your favorite pair of blue jeans?
<p>A new study indicates it might be quite large. The study, published in <a href="https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.estlett.0c00498" target="_blank">Environmental Science and Technology Letters</a> Wednesday, found denim <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/microfibers" target="_self">microfibers</a> had infiltrated all the way to the Canadian <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/arctic" target="_self">Arctic</a> Ocean. Researchers say it's a telling example of the extent of human-generated pollution.</p><p>"It's not an indictment of jeans — I want to be really clear that we're not coming down on jeans," study coauthor and University of Toronto environmental scientist Miriam Diamond <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/your-blue-jeans-are-polluting-the-ocean/?fbclid=IwAR0ImLGDKaFOz00SUdTb36l9TfbHyoliY16W8ICiuY0pTZSECXjsWMtOZJE&mbid=social_fb_sci&utm_brand=wired-science&utm_medium=social&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=facebook" target="_blank">told WIRED</a>. "It's just a really potent example of human impact."</p>
<div id="f07e3" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="ed4acc51d06332189afa9d2eeb0c7195"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1301132809302663168" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Yay! Our study on 'The Widespread Environmental Footprint of Indigo Denim #Microfibers from Blue Jeans' is out in… https://t.co/RELNCtmquQ</div> — Sam Athey (@Sam Athey)<a href="https://twitter.com/sustainablesam_/statuses/1301132809302663168">1599049210.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/scientists" target="_self">Scientists</a> and environmental advocates have long known that <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/plastic" target="_self">plastic</a> microfibers rub off synthetic clothing in the washing machine, where they enter the world's <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/oceanshttps://www.ecowatch.com/tag/oceans" target="_self">oceans</a> and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/rivers" target="_self">rivers</a> via wastewater treatment plants. One study <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/laundry-clothes-plastic-pollution-oceans-2646168554.html" target="_self">estimated</a> that two garbage trucks worth of microfibers enter Europe's oceans this way every day. These fibers have been found everywhere from <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/plastics-ocean-animals-2509746046.html" target="_self">the bellies of deep-sea crustaceans</a> to <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/microplastics-in-ocean-2645891531.html" target="_self">concentrated hotspots</a> in the sediment of the Mediterranean seafloor.</p><p>At any given moment, about half of the world's population is wearing blue jeans or other types of denim. So researchers at the University of Toronto wondered whether the popular garment had an equally global environmental impact.</p>
<p>To find out, they looked at water samples from the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, the Great Lakes, and suburban lakes near Toronto. They found that indigo denim microfibers made up a sizable percentage of all the microfibers found in the three locations, <a href="https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/pressroom/presspacs/2020/acs-presspac-september-2-2020/the-widespread-footprint-of-blue-jean-microfibers.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">according to an American Chemical Society (ACS) press release</a>; the percentages were as follows:</p><ol><li>Toronto Lakes: 12 percent</li><li>Arctic: 20 percent</li><li>Great Lakes: 23 percent</li></ol><p>"Unfortunately, the results are not surprising to environmental scientists; they are even expected," Caroline Gauchotte-Lindsay at the University of Glasgow in the UK, who was not involved in the study, told <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2253421-blue-jeans-pollute-water-by-releasing-50000-microfibres-per-wash/?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=echobox&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1599053088" target="_blank">New Scientist</a>.</p>
<p>The researchers didn't just look to see where the denim ended up. They also examined how it got there. To do this, they washed used, new and new distressed jeans, according to WIRED. They found that the new jeans released more fibers, and that a pair of jeans could release 56,000 microfibers per wash.</p><p>They also counted the denim microfibers that turned up in effluent, or discharge, from two wastewater treatment plants on Lake Ontario. They concluded that as many as a billion denim microfibers could be entering the lake every day.</p><p>While denim is made with organic fiber, not plastic, study coauthor Sam Athey told WIRED that it could still bring human contaminants to ocean ecosystems.</p>
<p>"They're called 'natural' textile fibers," Athey said. "I'm doing air quotes around 'natural' because they contain these chemical additives. They also pick up chemicals from the environment, when you're wearing your clothes, when they're in the closet."</p><p>The researchers did not check to see if the denim had entered the Arctic food web, but they did check the guts of Great Lakes rainbow smelt. However, they only found a single denim fiber in all of the fish they collected.</p><p>More research is needed to determine what impact, if any, blue jean fibers are having on the environment and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/marine-life" target="_self">marine life</a>. For now, there are steps you can take to keep your jeans from shedding into the oceans, Athey advised on Twitter. You can wash your jeans less frequently, get a filter for your washing machine and buy your jeans used.</p>
<div id="ce0f7" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="397a94af0c14897aa42f0075e2accddf"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1301196803300352007" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">@EmmaAckerley27 @EnvSciTech @AdamsJenniferK @lisaerdle @liisajay @UofTTrashTeam @UofTEarthSci @UofTArtSci Good ques… https://t.co/Zdeb7heCZi</div> — Sam Athey (@Sam Athey)<a href="https://twitter.com/sustainablesam_/statuses/1301196803300352007">1599064467.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>"While we certainly need more research to fully understand the effects, we also have ample evidence right now to act," Nicholas Mallos, senior director of the <a href="https://oceanconservancy.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Ocean Conservancy</a>'s Trash Free Seas Program who was not involved with the research, told WIRED.</p>
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Climate Crisis Could Change Permafrost Soil Microbes, With ‘Unknown Consequences’ for Arctic Ecosystems, Scientists Say
31 August
Climate
A University of Alberta researcher collects a soil sample from Arctic permafrost. University of Alberta
Can the past predict the future?
In the case of communities of microbes living in the Arctic permafrost, researchers at the University of Alberta think it might. The scientists discovered that the microbes and chemistry of Arctic soil changed dramatically following the end of the last Ice Age, and the same thing could happen again due to the climate crisis.
<p>"Since soils are where plants grow and where nearly all terrestrial life lives, this could have big impacts on the entire Arctic ecosystem," study coauthor and University of Alberta associate professor Brian Lanoi said in a <a href="https://www.folio.ca/how-changes-in-ancient-soil-microbes-could-predict-the-future-of-the-arctic/" target="_blank">university press release</a>. "Our work shows this happened before, and it is possible that this could happen again as the result of current climate change."</p>
<div id="58f7f" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="21e5ec4df105b9dcba0b067081eb65d2"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1299029042025369601" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">How changes in ancient soil microbes could predict the future of the Arctic: https://t.co/bXBDfEeMFd #UAlberta… https://t.co/qj9PQShzDX</div> — University of Alberta (@University of Alberta)<a href="https://twitter.com/UAlberta/statuses/1299029042025369601">1598547633.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>The study, <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fenvs.2020.00133/full?&utm_source=Email_to_authors_&utm_medium=Email&utm_content=T1_11.5e1_author&utm_campaign=Email_publication&field=&journalName=Frontiers_in_Environmental_Science&id=548929" target="_blank">published in </a><em><a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fenvs.2020.00133/full?&utm_source=Email_to_authors_&utm_medium=Email&utm_content=T1_11.5e1_author&utm_campaign=Email_publication&field=&journalName=Frontiers_in_Environmental_Science&id=548929" target="_blank">Frontiers in Environmental Science</a> </em>this month, helped fill a gap in scientists' understanding of how the end of the Ice Age impacted soil communities. The shift between the Ice Age (the Pleistocene) and the current era (the Holocene) led to dramatic and well-documented changes in plant and animal life, but, until now, it had not been clear if it caused equally dramatic changes to the communities of microbes living in the Arctic soil.</p><p>However, previous studies had looked at permafrost sediments dating from either the Pleistocene or Holocene. To better understand the transition, the University of Alberta researchers looked at sediment that showed the transition between the two geological epochs. They then analyzed the samples under sterile conditions for both their genetic makeup and chemical composition, and found that both markers were very different before and after the transitional period.</p>
<p>"We found that both the microbial communities and the chemical parameters are stable within each era until they cross a threshold, driven by the change in climate," Lanoil explained in the press release. "After that threshold, there is an abrupt switch to a new microbial community and new soil chemistry. We argue that modern climate change could lead to a similar transition in state for soils in Arctic ecosystems, with unknown consequences."</p><p>Because current Arctic soil microbes help process carbon and nitrogen, a change in their makeup could impact the carbon and nitrogen cycles, the press release explained. However, Lanoil pointed out that more research is needed to understand how a change in soil microbes impacts the surrounding ecosystem.</p>
<p>The researchers did note that warming in the Western Arctic is now much greater than at the end of the last Ice Age, and the region may be reaching its highest temperatures in the last 14,000 years.</p><p>Previous research has shown that warming might not only change the composition of Arctic soil, it might also release microbes that have been frozen there. Scientists have <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/bacteria-permafrost-climate-change-2398848353.html" target="_self">warned</a> that the climate crisis could cause deadly bacteria long trapped in frozen soil to reemerge.</p><p>"Permafrost is a very good preserver of microbes and viruses, because it is cold, there is no oxygen, and it is dark," evolutionary biologist <a href="https://www.igs.cnrs-mrs.fr/spip.php?article39&lang=fr" target="_blank">Jean-Michel Claverie</a> <a href="http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20170504-there-are-diseases-hidden-in-ice-and-they-are-waking-up" target="_blank">told BBC</a> in 2017. "Pathogenic viruses that can infect humans or animals might be preserved in old permafrost layers, including some that have caused global epidemics in the past."</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzU5ODMyNi9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwMTMwNTM2OX0.Ydoyw-JMsCsptzDSJoQoIfGFcBC8qZL3V03szdHdCKc/img.png?width=980" id="011c7" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="c5c0759fa6030271db49b507211ce4d8" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
A block of thawing permafrost topples off the Alaska coast. U.S. Geological Survey
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Earth Lost Over 30 Trillion Tons of Ice in Under 30 Years, Scientists 'Stunned' by Landmark Study
24 August
Climate
Sea ice breaking up in Greenland. steve_is_on_holiday / E+ / Getty Images
The Earth has lost 28 trillion tonnes (approximately 31 trillion U.S. tons) of ice in just 23 years, and the climate crisis is largely to blame.
<p>The finding comes in a <a href="https://tc.copernicus.org/preprints/tc-2020-232/" target="_blank">review paper</a> published in The Cryosphere this month that used satellite data and numerical modelling to calculate all the ice that melted worldwide between 1994 and 2017.</p><p>"In the past researchers have studied individual areas – such as the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/antarctica" target="_self">Antarctic</a> or <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/greenland" target="_self">Greenland</a> – where ice is melting. But this is the first time anyone has looked at all the ice that is disappearing from the entire planet," study coauthor and director of Leeds University's Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling Andy Shepherd told <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/aug/23/earth-lost-28-trillion-tonnes-ice-30-years-global-warming" target="_blank">The Guardian</a>. "What we have found has stunned us."</p>
<p><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/arctic" target="_self">Arctic</a> <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/sea-ice" target="_self">sea ice</a>, Antarctic ice shelves, mountain <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/glaciers" target="_self">glaciers</a>, the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, and Southern Ocean sea ice all lost mass during the study period, the researchers wrote. About 68 percent of those losses were caused by warmer air temperatures, while the remaining 32 percent were caused by warmer <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/ocean" target="_self">ocean</a> water.</p><p>"There can be little doubt that the vast majority of Earth's ice loss is a direct consequence of climate warming," the researchers wrote, as The Guardian reported.</p>
<p>In fact, the total ice loss recorded matches the worst-case scenario predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). And it's likely to get worse. The researchers prognosticate a meter (approximately three feet) of <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/sea-level-rise" target="_self">sea level rise</a> by 2100.</p><p>"To put that in context, every centimetre of sea level rise means about a million people will be displaced from their low-lying homelands," Shepherd told The Guardian.</p><p>But sea level rise isn't the only consequence of ice melt. For one thing, the melting ice exposes darker ocean waters or soil, which absorb the sun's heat rather than reflect it, increasing global heating. The fresh water melting from ice sheets also disrupts Arctic and Antarctic ocean ecosystems, while the loss of mountain glaciers threatens the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/drinking-water" target="_self">drinking water</a> of several communities.</p><p>"What more can be said? What further evidence are we waiting for?" UK Green Party co-leader Caroline Lucas tweeted in response to the news. "Feel so overwhelmingly sad - and so angry too. We can't say we didn't know. Are we really saying we just didn't care?"</p>
<div id="820ce" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="bc5cc2d33d34204b11a78693091a1afe"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1297470664031588352" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">What more can be said? What further evidence are we waiting for?
Feel so overwhelmingly sad - and so angry too
W… https://t.co/cvYV9ore53</div> — Caroline Lucas (@Caroline Lucas)<a href="https://twitter.com/CarolineLucas/statuses/1297470664031588352">1598176086.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>This has been a bad summer for ice news. Another study <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/greenland-ice-sheet-melting-2647005347.html" target="_self">published this month</a> found that Greenland's ice sheet had reached the "point of no return" and would continue to melt even if the climate crisis were halted. A <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/greenland-ice-melt-2019-2647049163.html" target="_self">third study</a> found that Greenland lost a record amount of ice in 2019.</p>
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Researchers on the ICESCAPE mission, funded by NASA, examine melt ponds and their surrounding ice in 2011 to see how changing conditions in the Arctic affect the biological and chemical makeup of the ocean. NASA / Flickr
By Alex Kirby
The temperature of the Arctic matters to the entire world: it helps to keep the global climate fairly cool. Scientists now say that by 2035 there could be an end to Arctic sea ice.
<p>The northern polar ocean's sea ice is a crucial element in the Earth system: because it is highly reflective, it sends solar radiation back out into space. Once it's melted, there's no longer any protection for the darker water and rock beneath, and nothing to prevent them absorbing the incoming heat.</p><p>High temperatures in the Arctic during the last <a href="https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/abrupt-climate-change/Glacial-Interglacial%20Cycles" target="_blank">interglacial – the warm period around 127,000 years ago</a> – have puzzled scientists for decades.</p><p>Now the <a href="https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/climate-change/organisations-and-reports/met-office-hadley-centre/index" target="_blank">UK Met Office's Hadley Centre</a> climate model has enabled an international research team to compare Arctic sea ice conditions during the last interglacial with the present day. Their findings are important for improving predictions of future sea ice change.</p>
<p>What is striking about the latest research is the date it suggests for a possible total melt − 2035. Many studies <a href="https://climatenewsnetwork.net/arctic-ocean-ice-free-mid-century/" target="_blank">have thought a mid-century crisis likely</a>, with another even <a href="https://phys.org/news/2019-11-arctic-ocean-ice-free-year.html" target="_blank">carefully specifying 2044 as the year to watch</a>. So a breathing space of only 15 years may surprise some experts.</p><p>During spring and early summer shallow pools of water form on the surface of the Arctic sea ice. These "melt ponds" help to determine how much sunlight is absorbed by the ice and how much is reflected back into space. The new Hadley Centre model is the UK's most advanced physical representation of the Earth's climate and a critical tool for climate research, and it incorporates sea ice and melt ponds.</p><p>The researchers report their findings in the journal <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-020-0865-2" target="_blank">Nature Climate Change</a>. Using the model to look at Arctic sea ice during the last interglacial, they concluded that the impact of intense springtime sunshine created many melt ponds, which played a crucial role in sea ice melt. A simulation of the future using the same model indicates that the Arctic may become sea ice-free by 2035.</p>
<p>The joint lead author of the team is <a href="https://www.bas.ac.uk/profile/marino/" target="_blank">Dr Maria Vittoria Guarino, an earth system modeller at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) in Cambridge</a>. She says: "High temperatures in the Arctic have puzzled scientists for decades. Unravelling this mystery was technically and scientifically challenging. For the first time, we can begin to see how the Arctic became sea ice-free during the last interglacial.</p><p>"The advances made in climate modeling mean that we can create a more accurate simulation of the Earth's past climate which, in turn, gives us greater confidence in model predictions for the future."</p><p><a href="https://www.bas.ac.uk/profile/lsim/" target="_blank">Dr. Louise Sime, the group head of the palaeoclimate group and joint lead author at BAS</a>, says, "We know the Arctic is undergoing significant changes as our planet warms. By understanding what happened during Earth's last warm period we are in a better position to understand what will happen in the future.</p>
Melt Ponds Crucial
<p>"The prospect of loss of sea ice by 2035 should really be focusing all our minds on achieving a low-carbon world as soon as humanly feasible."</p><p><a href="http://www.reading.ac.uk/search/search-staff-details.aspx?id=10813" target="_blank">Dr. David Schroeder from the University of Reading</a>, UK, who co-led the implementation of the melt pond scheme in the climate model, says, "This shows just how important sea ice processes like melt ponds are in the Arctic, and why it is crucial that they are incorporated into climate models."</p><p>The extent of the areas <a href="https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/seaice/characteristics/formation.html" target="_blank">sea ice</a> covers varies between summer and winter. If more solar energy is absorbed at the surface, and temperatures rise further, a cycle of warming and melting occurs during summer months.</p><p>When the ice forms, the ocean water beneath becomes saltier and denser than the surrounding ocean. Saltier water sinks and moves along the ocean bottom towards the equator, while warm water from mid-depths to the surface travels from the equator towards the poles.</p><p>Scientists refer to this process as the ocean's global "conveyor-belt." Changes to the volume of sea ice can disrupt normal ocean circulation, with consequences for global climate. </p>From Your Site Articles
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Canada's Last Intact Ice Shelf the Size of Manhattan Collapses Due to Global Warming
10 August
Oceans
Eureka Sound on Ellesmere Island in the Canadian Arctic taken by NASA's Operation IceBridge in 2014. NASA / Michael Studinger / Flickr / CC by 2.0
A 4,000-year-old ice shelf in the Canadian Arctic has collapsed into the sea, leaving Canada without any fully intact ice shelves, Reuters reported. The Milne Ice Shelf lost more than 40 percent of its area in just two days at the end of July, said researchers who monitored its collapse.
<p>Unlike glaciers, ice shelves are part of the ocean.</p><p>The Milne Ice Shelf on Ellesmere Island in Canada's Nunavut territory fell into the Arctic Sea and started to drift before breaking into two large chunks. The Copernicus Sentinel satellite captured the entire event, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/08/weather/canada-ice-shelf-collapse-milne-manhattan/index.html" target="_blank">CNN</a> reported.</p><p>Time-lapse photos on <a href="https://twitter.com/ECCC_CIS/status/1290740808170307584?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1290740808170307584%7Ctwgr%5E&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnn.com%2F2020%2F08%2F08%2Fweather%2Fcanada-ice-shelf-collapse-milne-manhattan%2Findex.html" target="_blank">Twitter</a> show the satellite animation between July 30 and August 4, as the ice shelf lost approximately 43 percent of its area. When the fallen pieces split in two, the larger one formed an iceberg roughly the size of Manhattan, according to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/canada-last-fully-intact-ice-shelf-suddenly-collapsed-2020-8" target="_blank">Business Insider</a>. </p>
<div id="3f778" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="26a7b2ea20a9cef68bf0d6e1c029fe5d"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1290740808170307584" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Satellite animation, from July 30 to August 4, shows the collapse of the last fully intact #iceshelf in #Canada. Th… https://t.co/n35ctDfmRh</div> — ECCC Canadian Ice Service (@ECCC Canadian Ice Service)<a href="https://twitter.com/ECCC_CIS/statuses/1290740808170307584">1596571564.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p><br>The massive break was first noticed by ice analyst Adrienne White of the <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/ice-forecasts-observations/latest-conditions.html" target="_blank">Canadian Ice Service</a>, the <a href="https://apnews.com/8077f82701c655ddebc6aafbb3dd453e" target="_blank">AP</a> reported.</p><p>"This is a huge, huge block of ice," White told the AP. "If one of these is moving toward an oil rig, there's nothing you can really do aside from move your oil rig."</p><p>The break resulted from polar amplification, which causes the Arctic to warm faster than the rest of the world, Business Insider reported. For example, today's polar ice caps are melting six times faster than in the 1990s.</p><p>"Above normal air temperatures, offshore winds and open water in front of the ice shelf are all part of the recipe for ice shelf break up," the Canadian Ice Service said on <a href="https://twitter.com/ECCC_CIS/status/1290045576692658176" target="_blank">Twitter</a>, according to Reuters.</p>
<div id="48af7" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="a601f615c13348682918cf9a52f9593b"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1290045576692658176" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">A huge section of the Milne #IceShelf has collapsed into the #Arctic Ocean producing a ~79 km2 ice island. Above no… https://t.co/RLLl5NjFy9</div> — ECCC Canadian Ice Service (@ECCC Canadian Ice Service)<a href="https://twitter.com/ECCC_CIS/statuses/1290045576692658176">1596405808.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>"Entire cities are that size. These are big pieces of ice," said Luke Copland, a glaciologist at the University of Ottawa and part of the research team studying the Milne Ice Shelf. He told Reuters that this summer the Canadian Arctic experienced temperatures about 5 degrees Celsius warmer than the 30-year average.</p><p>"Without a doubt, it's climate change," Copland told the AP, adding that the ice shelf is melting from both hotter air above and warmer water below. "The Milne was very special. It's an amazingly pretty location."</p><p>According to Business Insider, a research camp was lost when the shelf broke apart, as was the Northern Hemisphere's last known epishelf — a freshwater lake contained by an ice shelf.</p><p>"It is lucky that we were not on the ice shelf when this happened, our camp area and instruments were all destroyed in this event," Derek Mueller, a professor in the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies at Carleton University, said in a <a href="https://wirl.carleton.ca/milne-ice-shelf-calving-event/" target="_blank">blog post</a>, CNN reported. His team's trip had been canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.</p><p>Now that a large chunk of the ice shelf has collapsed into the ocean, there is the potential for additional cracking and movement, the Water and Ice Research Laboratory (WIRL) said in a<a href="https://wirl.carleton.ca/research/ice/ice-shelves/calving-2020/" target="_blank"> press release</a>. The ice shelf is still unstable and further ice breaks are possible in the coming days and weeks, WIRL warned.</p><p>Ice shelves can help limit rising sea levels since they act like a dam, CNN reported. </p>
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The Qamutik cargo ship on July 28, 2020 in Canada's Nunavut province, where two ice caps have disappeared completely. Fiona Paton / Flickr
Three years ago, scientists predicted it would happen. Now, new NASA satellite imagery confirms it's true: two ice caps in Canada's Nunavut province have disappeared completely, providing more visual evidence of the rapid warming happening near the poles, as CTV News in Canada reported.
<p>According to <a href="https://earther.gizmodo.com/a-pair-of-canadian-ice-caps-has-disappeared-completely-1844592208" target="_blank">Gizmodo</a>, scientists at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) <a href="https://nsidc.org/news/newsroom/st-patrick-bay-ice-caps-canada-have-completely-disappeared" target="_blank">said</a> last week that the St. Patrick Bay ice caps in the northeastern Ellesmere Island are nowhere to be seen on satellite imagery. The revelation that the ice caps have disappeared came sooner than scientists had expected.</p><p>"I can't say I was terribly surprised because we knew they were going, but it has happened really fast," Mark Serreze, director of NSIDC in Colorado, told <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/05/weather/st-patrick-bay-ice-caps-climate-change-trnd-scn/index.html" target="_blank">CNN</a>. Serreze co-authored a <a href="https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/11/169/2017/" target="_blank">paper</a> in 2017 estimating the ice caps would be gone within five years.</p>
<p>"When I first visited those ice caps, they seemed like such a permanent fixture of the landscape," said Serreze, in a <a href="https://nsidc.org/news/newsroom/st-patrick-bay-ice-caps-canada-have-completely-disappeared" target="_blank">statement</a>. "To watch them die in less than 40 years just blows me away."<br></p><p>The very hot temperatures in the summer of 2015 reduced the longevity of the St. Patrick's Bay ice caps. "You could really see they got hit. But that heat has really just not stopped. It's just getting too warm," Serreze told CNN.</p>
<p>This year has been especially tough on the region. Recent months have been plagued by heatwaves and wildfires across the <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/arctic">Arctic</a>, as Gizmodo reported. The extreme heat likely contributed to the melting of the ice caps. Research has found that summers in the region haven't been this warm in 115,000 years.</p><p>According to CNN, the nearby glaciers that sit at a higher elevation have been shrinking significantly as well.</p><p>"I'll make another prediction that they're gone in a decade," Serreze said to CNN.</p><p>Similar to scientists who <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/icelandic-glacier-monument-2639301498.html" target="_self">mourned a lost glacier in Iceland</a> and a <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/swiss-alps-pizol-glacier-funeral-2640547054.html" target="_self">funeral in Switzerland</a> held for a glacier, Serreze has felt the impact of losing these two ice caps.</p><p>"We've long known that as climate change takes hold, the effects would be especially pronounced in the Arctic," Serreze explained, as CTV News reported. "But the death of those two little caps that I once knew so well has made climate change very personal. All that's left are some photographs and a lot of memories."</p><p>Serreze first visited the ice caps in 1982 and has been studying them ever since, according to Gizmodo.</p>
<p>The melted ice caps were one half of a group of small ice caps on the Hazen Plateau, which formed during the Little Ice Age several centuries ago, according to the NSIDC.<br></p><p>Serreze told CNN that the small ice caps in the Arctic are clear indicators of the effects of the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-crisis">climate crisis</a>.</p><p>"There's something called 'Arctic amplification,' which refers to the observation – not the theory – that the Arctic is warming up at a much faster rate than the rest of the globe, anywhere from two to four times faster," Serreze said.</p><p>Hotter heat waves and cold waves that are not as cold as they were in the past are contributing factors.</p><p>"We are starting to see all these things come together." Serreze told CNN, adding that the disappearance of the St. Patrick's Bay ice caps is "an exclamation point of what's happening in the Arctic."</p>
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Biologists are studying the impact of climate change on the Nenets and their reindeer herds. Deutsche Welle
Biologist Egor Kirillin is on a special mission. Deep in the Siberian wilderness in the Russian Republic of Sakha, he waits on the Olenjok river until reindeer come thundering into the water.
<p>The river crosses the huge herd's migration route south, and provides Kirillin's one chance to tag them with radio transmitters. It's not a job for the faint of heart, but it is the only way to gather vital data on these animals' migration patterns — and try to uncover why their numbers are falling.</p><p>Meanwhile, Kirillin's colleague at the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, ethnologist Alexander Volkovitsky is researching the life and customs of the Nenets. </p><p>Nomadic reindeer herders who move with their domesticated herds animals by season, the Nenets cover exhausting distances across the Russian Arctic. Even small climatic changes can have a dramatic effect on their environment, and Volkovitsky wants to understand what global warming will mean for the Nenets' traditional way of life.</p><p><em>A film by Boas Schwarz</em></p>
<iframe scrolling="no" width="640" height="477" frameborder="0" align="middle" name="Russia: Climate change and Arctic reindeer | DW.COM" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" src="https://www.dw.com/embed/640/av-54398592"></iframe>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/reindeer-and-their-nomadic-herders-face-climate-change/a-54432629?maca=en-VAM_volltext_ecowatch-28485-html-copypaste" target="_blank">Deutsche Welle.</a></em></p>From Your Site Articles
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Trending
Water trickles down a hillside among moss next to the entrance to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault during a summer heat wave as mountains behind stand devoid of snow on Svalbard archipelago on July 29 in Longyearbyen, Norway. Sean Gallup / Getty Images
By Johnny Wood
What better place to build a Doomsday Vault than the remote, snow-covered islands of Norway's Arctic Svalbard? Sitting around 1,000 kilometers from the North Pole, the facility is buried in permafrost to protect the precious seed samples housed there. But a freak heatwave is causing the region's ice to melt.
<p>Following several days of near record-breaking hot weather in July, <a href="https://twitter.com/Meteorologene/status/1287060076365262849" target="_blank">Svalbard temperatures topped out at 21.7℃</a>, the country's meteorological institute reported. This is the <a href="https://www.sciencealert.com/svalbard-home-of-the-doomsday-vault-just-recorded-its-highest-ever-temperature" target="_blank">hottest ever recorded here, exceeding the previous record of 21.3℃ set </a>over 40 years earlier and a stark contrast to the region's <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/261996139_Introduction_in_TOPOCLIMATIC_DIVERSITY_IN_THE_FORLANDSUNDET_REGION_NW_SPITSBERGEN_IN_GLOBAL_WARMING_CONDITIONS_Edited_by_Przybylak_et_al_2012" target="_blank">average of between 5-7℃ for this time of year</a>.<br/></p>
Deep Trouble?
<p>The <a href="https://www.sciencealert.com/here-s-what-it-s-like-inside-the-doomsday-vault-that-stores-every-known-crop-on-the-planet" target="_blank">Svalbard Global Seed Vault</a> – also known as the Doomsday Vault – is a gigantic bunker, sitting deep inside a mountain surrounded by snowy wastelands. The facility stores close to <a href="https://www.seedvault.no/about/the-facility/" target="_blank">900,000 seed samples</a> from around the world and acts as a sort of back-up plan for agriculture, should disaster render parts of the planet unlivable or the world suffer a catastrophe, such as nuclear war or extreme climate change.</p><p>It's been described as an "<a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2235116-svalbard-doomsday-vault-gets-first-big-seed-deposit-since-upgrade/" target="_blank">insurance policy for food security</a>."</p><p>Inside the vault, <a href="https://www.sciencealert.com/here-s-what-it-s-like-inside-the-doomsday-vault-that-stores-every-known-crop-on-the-planet" target="_blank">temperatures are kept below minus 18℃</a>, cold enough to keep the seed samples safe for at least 200 years, even without backup power. But climate change is causing problems for the vault.</p><p>In 2016, which was the <a href="https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2841/2018-fourth-warmest-year-in-continued-warming-trend-according-to-nasa-noaa/" target="_blank">warmest year on record according to NASA</a>, soaring temperatures caused <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/05/20/doomsday-arctic-seed-vault-breached-permafrost-melts/" target="_blank">meltwater to breach the vault's entrance tunnel</a>. While no seeds were damaged, the <a href="https://www.sciencealert.com/svalbard-home-of-the-doomsday-vault-just-recorded-its-highest-ever-temperature" target="_blank">floodwater left an expensive repair bill</a> and tarnished the vault's reputation as impregnable to natural or manmade disasters.<span></span><br></p>The Heat Is On
<p>Warming in the islands has been underway for some time. Figures for 2017 show average temperatures are between 3-5℃ hotter than in 1971, according to the <a href="https://www.miljodirektoratet.no/globalassets/publikasjoner/M1242/M1242.pdf" target="_blank">Climate in Svalbard 2100</a> report, with the largest increases affecting the inner fjords.</p><p><span></span>Between 2071 and 2100, average temperatures throughout the archipelago will increase by between 7-10℃, the report predicts, shortening the snow season and causing loss of near-surface permafrost.</p><p><span></span>What's happening in Svalbard is symptomatic of wider changes impacting the Arctic expanse, which is <a href="https://www.upi.com/Science_News/2018/12/12/NOAA-Arctic-warming-at-twice-the-rate-of-the-rest-of-the-planet/5141544580754/" target="_blank">warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet</a>. Parts of the <a href="https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2019GL082187" target="_blank">Canadian Arctic are thawing 70 years earlier than predicted</a>, scientists from the University of Alaska Fairbanks found, a sign that climate change could be happening faster than first thought.</p><p>As warmer-than-average summers destabilize permafrost, much of which has lain frozen for millennia, methane and other gases trapped in the ice could be released at scale, accelerating climate change. In turn, warmer temperatures would lead to further permafrost loss.<br><br>Melting ice, on land and at sea, <a href="https://www.wwf.org.uk/updates/11-arctic-species-affected-climate-change" target="_blank">destroys animal habitats for species like polar bears and Arctic foxes</a>, which use their snowy white coats as camouflage either to hunt for food or avoid predators.</p><p>Climate scientist Dr Boris K Biskaborn of the Alfred Wegener Institute polar and marine research centre found Arctic continuous permafrost ground temperatures increased by 0.39℃ between 2008 and 2016. A similar trend was found in Antarctica, with increases of 0.29℃ over the same period.</p><p><span></span>Warming ground temperatures are an indication of the extent of climate change. Biskaborn predicts melting permafrost could lead to increased Arctic air temperatures of up to 0.27℃ by 2100.</p><p><span></span>Svalbard's seed bank exists to protect the world's most valuable natural resources from catastrophe. If we want to avoid making multiple withdrawals, tackling the underlying causes of climate change is a priority.</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/07/svalbard-seed-vault-arctic-climate-change/" target="_blank">World Economic Forum</a>. </em><em></em></p>From Your Site Articles
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Demonstrators block the entrance to a Deutsche Bank branch in Baden-Wuerttemberg, Stuttgart on Sept. 20, 2019. Sebastian Gollnow / picture alliance via Getty Images
By Krissy Waite
Climate activists are celebrating Deutsche Bank's new energy policy banning financial support of drilling in the Arctic, a move which comes after years of pressure from advocacy groups.
<p>The bank, a multinational investment company headquartered in Germany, announced Monday that it will no longer offer financial services to new projects that involve drilling for oil or gas in the Arctic. The policy also states it will not fund any <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/tar-sands">tar sand</a> projects or <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/fracking/">fracking</a> in areas that have low water supply.</p><p>Concerns over the Arctic have risen in recent weeks as the region <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/06/27/warning-sign-major-proportions-number-siberian-forest-fires-increase-fivefold-week" target="_blank">has been battling</a> a prolonged heatwave and wildfires, which have been caused by human-driven climate change.</p><p>Last week, the World Meteorological Organization <a href="https://public.wmo.int/en/media/news/siberia-heat-fire-and-melting-ice" target="_blank">announced</a> that Siberia's average temperature in June was 10°C above normal. The Arctic is warming over two times faster than the rest of the world.</p><p>Ben Cushing, Sierra Club senior campaign representative, said in a <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2020/07/27/multinational-banking-giant-deutsche-bank-will-not-fund-arctic-drilling" target="_blank">statement</a> that it is becoming clear to banks that <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/divest">divesting</a> from Arctic drilling is important. He pointed to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which spans over 19 million acres of Alaskan land.</p><p>"As the list of major banks rejecting funding for Arctic drilling continues to grow, it's clearer by the day that investing in the destruction of the Arctic Refuge would be a mistake," Cushing said. "The <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/trump-watch/">Trump</a> administration may still think auctioning off the Arctic Refuge is a good idea, but it′s obvious that oil companies would be foolish to take them up on their offer."</p>
<p>In 2017, Congress passed a provision allowing refuge lands to be leased to oil companies. <a href="https://www.wilderness.org/wild-places/alaska/oil-drilling-arctic-national-wildlife-refuge?gclid=CjwKCAjw9vn4BRBaEiwAh0muDMsB21ifOMIjiDqIzvZMM9RFxdtmUSjWbMzrh0GaktYXJ23dCbrtThoC7cMQAvD_BwE" target="_blank">Drilling is incredibly harmful</a> to the people and <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/wildlife">wildlife</a> that live in the refuge because it because it <a href="https://www.barentsinfo.org/barents-region/Nature/Animals-and-plants/Habitat-fragmentation#:~:text=Habitat%20fragmentation%3A%20a%20threat%20to%20arctic%20biodiversity%20and%20wilderness&text=As%20human%20activity%20increases%2C%20however,of%20the%20area's%20wilderness%20heritage." target="_blank">divides natural habitats and interrupts migration patterns</a>. Polar bears, caribou, and the 270 other species of wildlife — and the Gwich'in people who rely on certain animals for sustenance — would suffer.</p><p>Deutsche <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/deutsche-bank-says-it-wont-finance-any-new-arctic-region-or-oil-sand-projects-2020-07-27" target="_blank">stated it will not be terminating</a> any current financial backing of Arctic drilling projects, but that it will be evaluating all ongoing oil and gas business ventures by the end of 2020 and end any business in coal mining by or before 2025.</p><p>Urgewald, a Germany-based environment and human rights NGO that focuses on divesting from destructive projects, tweeted in response to the news that while Deutsche Bank's policy is needed, it's too little and too late.</p>
<div id="a044b" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="d0a01f4da6d8b08cfefca4ee9a4cb576"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1287726413144104970" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">@DeutscheBankAG 's new policies are much-needed movement, but too little and too late. As long as companies like… https://t.co/DcqP5pE8S9</div> — urgewald (@urgewald)<a href="https://twitter.com/urgewald/statuses/1287726413144104970">1595852876.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>Bill McKibben, co-founder of 350.org, celebrated the news by congratulating <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/indigenous-peoples">Indigenous</a> groups on their organizing.</p>
<div id="c1fbe" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="07221047ad734dbe3b48bb4ac7f34bba"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1287745245451444233" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Add @DeutscheBank to the growing list of banks that won't touch Arctic or tarsands projects. Such great organizing,… https://t.co/EIZt732RpT</div> — Bill McKibben (@Bill McKibben)<a href="https://twitter.com/billmckibben/statuses/1287745245451444233">1595857366.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>Tara Houska, founder of Giniw Collective and co-founder of Not Your Mascots, welcomed the bank's decision and called for others to follow suit. "If DeutschBank can stop, any of the banks can," she said. "Who's next?"</p>
<div id="7813b" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="0cf2b41665f65dd0c9c2ecebb5d3ceee"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1287751906430013441" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Visited this bank in 2017, it had intense security. Felt the most removed, unconcerned about the human rights of th… https://t.co/wpEy2E7HOy</div> — tara houska ᔖᐳᐌᑴ (@tara houska ᔖᐳᐌᑴ)<a href="https://twitter.com/zhaabowekwe/statuses/1287751906430013441">1595858954.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>Deutsche Bank joins Goldman Sachs, <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/02/wells-fargo-joins-banks-rejecting-funding-arctic-drilling-pressure-heats-others-do" target="_blank">Wells Fargo</a>, Citi, <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/02/25/even-worst-fossil-fuel-banker-jpmorgan-chase-will-no-longer-fund-way-destroying" target="_blank">JPMorgan Chase</a> and Morgan Stanley — five of the biggest American banks — in banning Arctic drilling from its company. Bank of America is currently the last of the largest banks in the U.S. to <a href="https://www.sierraclub.org/press-releases/2020/04/major-banks-rule-out-funding-for-arctic-drilling-bank-america-risks-getting" target="_blank">issue</a> an anti-Arctic drilling policy or statement. Globally, about <a href="https://www.banktrack.org/campaign/banks_and_arctic_oil_and_gas" target="_blank">two dozen banks</a> have adopted these policies.</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/07/27/pressured-climate-activist-groups-deutsche-bank-ditches-drilling-arctic" target="_blank">Common Dreams</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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A polar bear with two playful cubs. Jennie Gosché
By Jennie Gosché
In late 2019, before the world was completely upended by the COVID-19 pandemic, I was presented a last-minute chance to photograph polar bears outside one of the northernmost villages in the United States — Kaktovik, Alaska. It was an opportunity I couldn't refuse, and as the COVID-19 pandemic now stretches into summer 2020, I'm grateful I accepted.
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzUxMzU2My9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1NDg0NDEyOX0.ducqI5scB-Y8YGfBjJy8MH782PWfHnMc3M2N5yrh9dE/img.jpg?width=980" id="86ac9" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="99cd2f84506e478d8022f6c9a3064b44" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Polar bears adorn the sign leading into Kaktovik. Jennie Gosché
<p>Kaktovik is an Inupiat native village of around 250 people on the coast of the Arctic Ocean, located on barrier islands at the edge of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. My first trip there took place in September 2016, and I traveled with the purpose to photograph the <a href="https://www.usgs.gov/news/southern-beaufort-sea-polar-bear-population-declined-2000s#:~:text=The%20polar%20bear%20was%20listed,ice%20loss%20on%20their%20populations." target="_blank">threatened Southern Beaufort Sea polar bear population</a>. The coastal region of the Arctic Refuge in fall is a special place to photograph these magnificent animals, as they congregate on dirt and sand spits of land waiting for the winter ice of the Beaufort Sea to make its way to the Alaska shore.</p><p>During the late summer and early fall, Inupiat boat owners from Kaktovik guide "tourist" photographers out to view polar bears from a safe distance in the placid lagoon adjacent to the raging waves of the Beaufort Sea. I joined one such group of photographers led by <a href="https://hughrosephotography.com/" target="_blank">Hugh Rose</a>, a professional photographer and geologist who lives in Fairbanks, and we took a short charter flight from Deadhorse to Kaktovik, landing in a morning snowstorm. But by afternoon, the sun was out and we had three and a half days of sunshine that combined with the ice and snow to create great conditions in which to photograph polar bears.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzUxMzU2Ni9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0MDE1ODE5M30.wlTpUch74PsdZbvOOVmlJLlEfOS3UHI9S1yb1orCbf4/img.jpg?width=980" id="f9de2" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="57baaf66d893539215aba68cdae72e8c" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
The welcome sign at the Waldo Arms Hotel. Jeff Stamer / www.firefallphotography.com
<p>We were out in the lagoon twice a day, breaking only for lunch at our hotel, the modest but welcoming <a href="http://www.waldoarmshotel.net/" target="_blank">Waldo Arms Hotel</a> owned by Walt "Waldo" Audi and Merlyn Trainer — one of only two options for places to stay in Kaktovik when visiting. The boat guides are skilled, and they have to be, because knowledge and awareness of depths in the lagoon is critical to prevent a boat from getting stuck in shallow water.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzUxMzU2Ny9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwNDM3NTQ1NH0.erl1bkwyRS9tYzJTVnPD5FL4eUk4e7EMLnv7bKmcQmI/img.jpg?width=980" id="e1274" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="28ddc335167786f68044d07a092f1d82" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Polar bear viewing is done by boat for the safety of both people and polar bears. Jennie Gosché
<p>This trip we were in a boat with a heated cabin, a perk since we were there later in the season. Our boat driver, however, told us that at that very same time the previous year, the lagoon was completely frozen over. He shared this as we floated on the lagoon in open water, though ice was visible in places and we occasionally heard pieces rubbing against the hull of the metal boat.</p><p>____________________________________________________________________________________________________________</p><p>With rapidly rising temperatures, <a href="http://forestry.alaska.gov/Assets/pdfs/firestats/2019%20Alaska%20Fire%20Statistics.pdf" target="_blank">increases in wildfires</a>, thawing permafrost, receding glaciers, <a href="https://www.alaskapublic.org/2019/11/21/new-report-sheds-more-light-on-climate-change-impacts-to-alaska-native-villages/" target="_blank">eroding coastlines</a> and disappearing sea ice, <a href="https://www.cjr.org/special_report/whats-become-of-arctic.php" target="_blank">Alaska and the Arctic are on the front lines of climate change</a>. It has hit Alaska's rural communities and <a href="https://www.alaskapublic.org/2019/11/21/new-report-sheds-more-light-on-climate-change-impacts-to-alaska-native-villages/" target="_blank">Alaska Native villages especially hard</a>, including villages like <a href="https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/11/25/changes-in-climate-make-alaskas-traditional-ice-cellars-unreliable/" target="_blank">Kaktovik</a>. Warming waters and the disappearing Arctic ice cap are also impacting ocean life, from plankton to <a href="https://www.ktuu.com/content/news/Polar-bears-face-swimming-to-land-or-ecological-trap-as-sea-ice-diminishes-567243261.html" target="_blank">polar bears</a> to whales. And the decline in sea ice is making it <a href="https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/seaice/environment/indigenous_impacts.html" target="_blank">increasingly unsafe for humans and wildlife to travel across it</a> to hunt marine mammals like seals, walrus and bowhead whales.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzUxMzU2OS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0ODkyMzUyMH0.yboTwh7hnlLyKF3hiJn3JAF_ClTFFXjxSx0bFMDvLLM/img.jpg?width=980" id="7fcbc" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="dd629612d9e0b2b3d95ca96a1fafe6d3" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Coastal erosion is causing permafrost to thaw and break off, here along the Arctic coastal plain in the Teshekpuk Lake Special Area of the National Petroleum Reserve - Alaska. Brandt Meixell, U.S.Geological Survey
<p>The Inupiat are primarily subsistence hunters and whalers, harvesting whales each summer (in addition to caribou and other wildlife), the meat from which is shared by the entire village. It is a staple of their diet and has been for thousands of years, but as temperatures warm, the lack of ice combined with changes in whale migration patterns and timing could make hunting progressively more difficult.</p><p>The Inupiat <a href="https://www.fws.gov/refuge/arctic/pbcommunity.html" target="_blank">share their whale meat with the polar bears</a>, something they have done for many years. This gesture provides much needed food for polar bears, especially as they spend longer periods of time on land due to the receding sea ice. When I visited Kaktovik in 2016, my most memorable photo is of a cub on top of whale bones, shaking what looks like animal skin in its mouth.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzUxMzU3MS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY2MDg0OTE0N30.0_0GgJUfWyM96OOfooius3AoGASWNwoUjBk40SVeES4/img.jpg?width=980" id="f176f" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="babdb9d27ca6834212bc276596e92df3" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Bears have learned to scavenge whale carcasses left over from successful whaling hunts. Jennie Gosché
<p>As I returned to the village in late 2019, however, they had moved the bone pile away from the lagoon to an area off-limits to tourists. I was told the bone pile now only stays on land for a short time, and then the bones are pushed into the ocean. Eventually, this change could affect the overall health of the Southern Beaufort Sea polar bears, as many of them increasingly den on land in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and utilize the shared whale meat for sustenance during the summer and early fall before they enter their maternal birthing dens in November.<br>____________________________________________________________________________________________________________</p><p>Which brings me back to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, as wild a place as any other on Earth but one also under threat of oil and gas development. While in Kaktovik I learned that there is not a consensus in the village on the question of allowing oil drilling in the Arctic Refuge. Climate change and impacts to wildlife are serious concerns, so much so that more than 60 village residents <a href="https://www.adn.com/opinions/2017/12/13/those-who-would-open-anwr-do-not-speak-for-kaktovik/" target="_blank">signed a petition in 2017 opposing drilling on the Arctic Refuge coastal plain</a>.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzUxMzU3My9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyMzY1Mzk4OH0.mbTdFW-RUFS12gFR5cnUKtB7aERaAYyfBpAo7FpL6EU/img.jpg?width=980" id="a986f" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="a69634ab2a4cb7218e73571fb67e8825" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Oil production facilities dominate the region around Prudhoe Bay, to the West of the Arctic Refuge. Florian Schulz / www.florianschulz.org
<p>Helping to prevent development in the <a href="https://www.alaskawild.org/places-we-protect/arctic-refuge/" target="_blank">Arctic National Wildlife Refuge</a> — a place that supports the greatest variety of plant and animal life in the entire circumpolar north — is very important to me, not least of all because the <a href="https://www.alaskawild.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/USGS-wildlife-report-statement-1-26-2018-FINAL.pdf" target="_blank">U.S. government has admitted</a> it simply doesn't have enough information about the impacts of oil and gas development on the coastal plain to protect its wildlife and other values. Oil drilling <a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/green/news/2019/11/20/477495/trumps-energy-policies-put-alaska-climate-crosshairs/" target="_blank">will compound the devastating climate impacts</a> already being felt by villages in the region, increasing carbon emissions, worsening climate pollution and further harming front line communities.</p><p>Especially now, in the midst of an uncertain present and looking forward to an uncertain future, we need to press pause on Arctic Refuge development. Instead of recklessly rushing ahead, more research over extended periods of time is needed so that we can fully understand the potential impact oil drilling will have on local villages, our climate and wildlife like the majestic polar bear.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzUxMzU3NC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwMjY0MDg3NX0.dZU0z5o9B6w9N7iMkL0RIC1EL86kfp1CX8QoksRnTkM/img.jpg?width=980" id="5c491" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="00847007e12c1478891865721f7dc0c6" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
A mother nurses her cubs. Jennie Gosché
<p><em>Jennie Gosché has traveled to the Arctic seven times to photograph polar bears. Having visited the five countries where polar bears are found (Denmark (Greenland), Norway, Russia, the United States and Canada), Kaktovik, Alaska, has become her favorite place to photograph them. Jennie's photography has been exhibited in Washington, D.C., Minneapolis and Maryland. She is a member of Alaska Wilderness League.</em></p>
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A polar bear stands on sea ice on the North Pole. Arterra / Universal Images Group via Getty Images
If world governments don't act to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, most polar bear populations will not survive the century, a new study has found.
<p>Polar bears, who rely on <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/arctic" target="_self">Arctic</a> <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/sea-ice" target="_self">sea ice</a> to hunt for seals, have long been a symbol of the impacts of the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change/" target="_self">climate crisis</a>. As the ice melts, they lose the ability to sustain themselves.</p><p>"Polar bears are already sitting at the top of the world; if the ice goes, they have no place to go," lead study author and University of Toronto Scarborough biologist Péter Molnár told <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/science-environment-53474445" target="_blank">BBC News</a>.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">When will polar bear populations collapse? The answer is up to us. <a href="https://t.co/Ln0XxboXL1">https://t.co/Ln0XxboXL1</a><a href="https://twitter.com/nresearchnews?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@nresearchnews</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/polarbearresearch?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#polarbearresearch</a></p>— Polar Bears International (@PolarBears) <a href="https://twitter.com/PolarBears/status/1285297991360720896?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 20, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<p>But the study, published in <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-020-0818-9" target="_blank"><em>Nature Climate Change</em></a> Monday, is the first to predict when and where Arctic warming will threaten the bears' survival, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/20/most-polar-bears-to-disappear-by-2100-study-predicts-aoe" target="_blank">The Guardian reported</a>.</p><p>"It's been clear for some time that polar bears are going to suffer under climate change," Molnár told The Guardian. "But what was not fully clear was when we would expect major declines in the survival and reproduction of polar bears that could ultimately lead to their extirpation."</p><p>To answer this question, scientists looked at two emissions scenarios: business as usual and a more moderate option in which emissions peak in 2040 before starting to fall, according to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/20/climate/polar-bear-extinction.html" target="_blank">The New York Times</a>. Under the business-as-usual model, all populations of polar bears would be wiped out by 2100, except for the bears living in Canada's northernmost Queen Elizabeth Islands, The Guardian reported. But even under the moderate scenario, most populations were likely to suffer reproductive failure by 2080, the study found.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">For the first time, scientists have answered the critical question of 'when' the persistence of polar bear populations across the Arctic will be threatened due to sea ice loss from global warming.<a href="https://t.co/NW2vf3QbPx">https://t.co/NW2vf3QbPx</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/nresearchnews?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@nresearchnews</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/climateactionnow?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#climateactionnow</a> <a href="https://t.co/6c8V2nYhzy">pic.twitter.com/6c8V2nYhzy</a></p>— Polar Bears International (@PolarBears) <a href="https://twitter.com/PolarBears/status/1285333085031141377?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 20, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<p>"The study shows clearly that polar bears are going to do better with less warming," University of Alberta polar bear expert Andrew Derocher, who was not involved with the study, told The New York Times. "But no matter which scenario you look at, there are serious concerns about <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/conservation" target="_self">conservation</a> of the species."</p><p>Polar bears can fast for months at a time when sea ice melts in the spring and summer. The researchers made their predictions based on how long male bears could reasonably fast and survive and how long females could reasonably fast and raise their young compared with how long different parts of the Arctic are projected to be ice free through 2100.</p><p>They assessed 13 of 19 polar bear populations, or around 80 percent of the roughly 25,000 bears remaining. Bears in Canada's Archipelago ecoregion were not assessed because it is hard to estimate future sea ice in the area's islands and channels, according to The Guardian.</p>
<p>If nothing is done to reduce emissions, bears in Canada's southern Hudson Bay and Davis Strait could fail to reproduce by 2040 while most bears in Alaska and Russia could be at risk by 2080. The polar bear population in western Hudson Bay has already shrunk around 30 percent since 1987.</p><p>"Showing how imminent the threat is for different polar bear populations is another reminder that we must act now to head off the worst of future problems faced by us all," study coauthor and chief scientist of <a href="https://polarbearsinternational.org/" target="_blank">Polar Bears International</a> Dr. Steven Amstrup told BBC News. "The trajectory we're on now is not a good one, but if society gets its act together, we have time to save polar bears. And if we do, we will benefit the rest of life on Earth, including ourselves."</p>
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Scientists say that a record-breaking Arctic heat wave was made 600 times more likely by the man-made climate crisis. PBS NewsHour / YouTube
The record-breaking heat in the Arctic saw temperatures soar above 100 degrees for the first time in recorded history. Now, a new analysis has put to rest any notion that the heat was caused by natural temperature fluctuations.
<p>The study found that the record-breaking <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/heat-wave" target="_self">heat wave</a> was made 600 times more likely by the man-made <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-crisis" target="_self">climate crisis</a>, as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/15/climate-change-made-siberian-heatwave-600-times-more-likely-study" target="_blank">The Guardian</a> reported. In other words, the heat wave is nearly impossible without the climate crisis.</p><p>The heat in Siberia has produced conditions both strange and awful, with massive wildfires, ravening mosquitoes and shaky permafrost that has caused infrastructure damage, including a burst fuel tank that released about <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/russia-oil-spill-arctic-lake-2646167101.html?rebelltitem=1" target="_self">23,000 tons of diesel fuel into a pristine lake</a>. The wildfires have spread farther north than ever before and have put more greenhouse gases into the earth's atmosphere than in any other month in 18 years of data collection, according to one report.</p>
<p>To figure out if human actions played a role in the unprecedented heat wave in Siberia, the researchers looked at two recent examples of exceptional heating in the region. The first was a look at the trend line from January through June of this year, when the average temperatures in the region were 9 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than the average temperatures from 1951 to 1980. The second was the remarkable heat on June 20 that saw temperatures at the Russian town of Verkhoyansk at a reported 100.4 degrees, which the Russian Meteorological Service said is a record for temperatures anywhere north of the Arctic Circle, as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/15/climate/siberia-heat-wave-climate-change.html" target="_blank">The New York Times</a> reported.</p><p>The research was conducted by a group of 14 scientists from six countries who collaborated to figure how something this out-of-bounds could occur. Their comprehensive climate attribution study declared, "This large-scale prolonged event would have been essentially impossible without climate change," as <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/arctic-heat-wave-human-caused-climate-change/" target="_blank">CBS News</a> reported.</p>
<p>For context, the researchers said that if, hypothetically, you lived in this region before around 1900, when human-caused climate impacts started to emerge, a heat event as widespread, prolonged and intense as this would only occur once every 80,000 years — or about once every 1,000 lifetimes, according to CBS News.</p><p>For all practical purposes, said <a href="https://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/people/fotto.html#:~:text=Friederike%20(Fredi)%20is%20the%20Acting,focus%20on%20Africa%20and%20India." target="_blank" title="">Friederike Otto</a>, acting director of the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford and an author of the paper, "you would not have gotten an event like this without climate change," as The New York Times reported.</p><p>In a statement, Andrew Ciavarella, the lead author of the research and senior detection and attribution scientist at the Met Office, the national meteorological service for Britain, called the result "truly staggering," according to The New York Times.</p>
<p>Climate scientists use advanced computer simulations to compare the climate as it is today with the climate as it would have been without human influence to see how likely different weather events would have been if our species had never altered the atmosphere, according to the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-53415297" target="_blank">BBC</a>. In this study, the researchers looked at the temperature abnormalities by observational surface temperature records and they recreated the climate using dozens of climate computer models. They delved into rich troves of data to determine how much of a weather phenomenon may have been caused by human activities that have generated planet-warming greenhouse gases, as The New York Times reported.</p><p>The researchers say that the current Siberian heat "has contributed to raising the world's average temperature to the second hottest on record for the period January to May," as the BBC reported.</p><p>"This study shows again just how much of a game-changer climate change is with respect to heat waves," said Otto, as The Guardian reported. "As emissions continue to rise, we need to think about building resilience to extreme heat all over the world, even in Arctic communities – which would have seemed nonsensical not very long ago."</p>
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