Elaine Meinel Supkis
Thanks to global warming, the animals in the Arctic are going through terrible times as their world disintegrates around them. The ice shelf is so broken up, baby walruses are are falling into the ocean and drowning because the remaining ice is where the water is too deep.
Adrianne Appel
for National Geographic News
March 27, 2006
Melting Arctic ice may be putting walrus pups in peril, researchers say.A team of scientists working in the Arctic Ocean in 2004 says it encountered nine Pacific walrus pups struggling alone in the water far from shore.
Typically walrus pups live on ice close to shore and are inseparable from their mothers.
Like baby penguins, baby seals or baby polar bears, they don't go into water until they lose their baby fluff and grow a coat of adult fur or feathers. If they fall into the ocean too early, they get too cold and die. Likewise, rain is bad for them, too.
"The baby walruses would swim up to the boat. It was heartbreaking,'' he said.
Not only is the ice thinner, it is further from the shoreline and is over deeper and deeper ocean which is hard on the walruses who use their tusks to pry urchins and other sea creatures off the ocean bottom. If the walrus nursery is too far from the feeding grounds, the mothers have to be away longer periods of time and the anxious babies crawl to the edge of the ice, calling their mothers because they are hungry and then the ice tips and breaks and into the ocean they fall.
The ocean is also rougher and waves suddenly wash over the ice when the wind blows and the heaving up and down of the ice sheet causes it to bunch and break, tumbling the little ones into the sea to die.
As we celebrate warmer weather down here, the distress in nature is growing. My maples are all dying. The ones that are over 50 years old are quickly giving up, virtually none of my maple giants that are over 200+ years old are alive and now the ancient oaks, some of which date from Columbus or earlier, are dying, too.
Scientists despair at getting the American government to issue any instructions on how to curb greenhouse gases. Guess we will learn the hard way, super hot isn't so super.
I was wondering if you were going to comment on this. I just read in Time Magazine that the "debate" over global warming is now over. Of course, so is any chance of turning back the tide.
I guess the reporters at Time now think they are heros or something for telling us what we all could see quite well for years now. I am sure they wanted to be the "first" to confirm global warming after sponsoring so many articles ridiculing the whole concept.
Posted by: DeVaul | March 28, 2006 at 04:46 PM
The sun has been more active this last cycle too and this makes it warmer and the CO2 traps this warmth.
We can plunge into a nasty ice age very swiftly. The weather systems are unstable because of many geological and astronomical forces.
The main thing is, pollution is bad. Nearly universally.
Posted by: Elaine Meinel Supkis | March 28, 2006 at 08:53 PM