Impacts of Thawing Ice Caps

Climate change is real. The thawing impacts of global warming is affecting every icy corner of the Earth.
Global warming is warming the Arctic almost twice as fast as the rest of the planet, as the ice caps melt and expose the darker land surfaces causing Arctic amplification effect. If sea ice continues to contract rapidly over the next several years, scientists would expect the rate of warming of the Arctic land mass to triple, and permafrost thaw to accelerate faster than predicted. More than 2 trillion tons of land ice in Greenland, Antarctica and Alaska have melted since 2003, according to new NASA satellite data.

According to a report comprising the research work of y more than 250 scientists, temperatures in the Arctic will rise by 4^oC - 8^oC in the next 100 years. The Greenland icecap would melt altogether in 1,000 years and raise global sea levels by about 23 feet, presenting catastrophic consequences to coastal regions around the world. The more immediate impact is the sea level rise of about 4 inches by the end of the century with total melting of the Arctic ice in summers.
In Alaska, the permafrost is thawing too. Over the past 50 years, Alaska has warmed at more than twice the rate of the rest of the United States. Its annual average temperature has increased 3.4°F, while winters have warmed even more, by 6.3°F. The annual rainfall has been decreasing. Seasonal ice cover on the Great Lakes has been declining on average.

There are many worrying impacts of the Arctic thaw:

Glaciers have been retreating worldwide at an alarming rate, unprecedented in history. Projected temperature increase of 3 - 4^oC in the 21st century due to unmitigated greenhouse gas ( GHG ) emissions will further increase the melting rate and bare the Greenland of ice sheets!

When glaciologist Lonnie Thompson returned to Peru's Qori Kalis glacier early summer 2007, he found half of the ice he saw during his last visit there had vanished. (Research News of the Ohio State University)

What worried him most was that his observations suggested the entire glacier might likely be gone within the next five years, providing possibly the clearest evidence so far of global climate change.

Photos show changes in the Qori Kalis Glacier, Peru, between 1978 (top) and 2002 (bottom). Glacier retreat during this time was 1,100 m (Photo: L. Thompson )

Global Warming has opened a Northwest Passage..... read

New Security and Military Challenges
Arctic thaw due to global warming is opening up more passages of the Arctic to sea exploration and raising security concerns. As the melting polar ice makes accessible the once-frozen shipping lanes, it also creates a scramble that poses new security challenge, threatening to complicate already delicate relations between stake holding countries. Russia, Canada, the United States, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Iceland and Finland are rushing to establish their early military presence so as not to miss out tapping the huge reserves of fossil fuels and natural gases........read

Sea level rise of 1.2 mm per year between 1993 - 2003, causing reduction of wetlands and mangroves; increasing the frequency and magnitude of coastal flooding. Arctic glaciers are melting twice as fast as they did 40 years ago and are responsible for about 9% of the rise in global sea level. Sea level rise is threatening and may destroy coastal fresh water resources, communities and habitats. ...read

Water shortage

Glaciers collectively covers an area equivalent to the whole of South America. They constitute the largest freshwater reservoir. In Chile and in all the world's frozen regions - glaciers are melting at very fast rate. Such loss of water will result in half a billion population in South Asia facing acute water shortage, and may cause some parts of Northern China to become arid land. ...read

(Pic: Melting water streams from iceberg calved from Ilulissat Kangerlua Glacier in Greenland.
Paul Souders / Corbis)

Ecosystems at great risks
Glacier loss directly affects ecosystems and human livelihood. They are home to some of the most unique organisms and ecosystems on Earth. While many species are likely to be affected by changes in stream flow and sea level associated with glacier melting, animals that dwell on or near glaciers may face extinction by the disappearance of their icy habitats. Livelihood of many people in the Arctic are already affected. Indigenous hunters feel an increasing scarcity of prey like seals and whales. ...read

Marine Animals:
Ringed seals are entirely dependent on sea-ice for their survival and will be the most vulnerable to reduced sea-ice projections. Polar bears are also dependent on sea ice and their preferred diet is almost exclusively ringed seal. If there is almost complete loss of summer sea-ice polar bears may not survive as a species. More and more of the lemmings, caribou, reindeer or snowy owls are being forced northwards. Livelihood of many people in the Arctic are already affected. Indigenous hunters feel an increasing scarcity of prey like seals and whales. The United Nations has estimated that as many as one in four mammals on Earth is threatened with extinction.


Endangered Polar bears		Endangered Pacific walrus		Endangered Ribbon seal

Pest Outbreaks
Whilst the heat-intolerant species struggle to find suitable habitat, global warming may be blamed for accelerating the "natural" invasion of forest pests towards the North. Pests which would not have survived may now be able to spread, and establish themselves. New diseases may spread and bring changes in the ecology of vast regions.

Take for example, the Asian long-horned beetle (pic) has recently been discovered in 24 different tree and shrub species in Italy. There is a very strong likelihood that in Europe virtually all broadleaved tree species are potentially endangered. Others pests are also moving North. To name but a few: the emerald ash borer, a highly destructive insect that kills ash trees, the European gypsy moth, the jack pine budworm, the hemlock looper that breeds 10 times its normal infestation area in Fort Frances of California.

Ground instability in permafrost regions and frequent rock avalanches
Climatic warming during the last 100-150 years has resulted in a significant glacier ice loss from mountainous areas of the world. Certain natural processes which pose hazards to people and development in these areas have accelerated as a result of this recent de-glaciations. These include glacier avalanches, landslides and slope instability caused by glacier de-buttressing, and outburst floods from moraine- and glacier-dammed lakes. In addition, changes in sediment and water supply induced by climatic warming and glacier retreat have altered channel and floodplain patterns of rivers draining high mountain ranges. Thawing permafrost also causes damages in roads, runways, water and sewer systems, and other infrastructure.

This association of these natural perturbations with climate change would affect future development in mountains....read

Release of methane gas trapped beneath in the permafrost

A study by the British Antarctic Survey found that in the past 800,000 years methane had never tipped 750 ppb, but is now 1,780 ppb. Methane is a much potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Despite its shorter atmospheric lifetime of about 8.4 years, it has a high global warming potential of 72 (averaged over 20 years).

The very concern is that methane may cause runaway global warming. Scientists strongly believe that methane release from thawed permafrost might have caused the global warming of 4 - 6°C which wiped out about 96% of the ecosystems in the aftermath of the Permian Extinction event. ...read
(Pic: Methane bubbles trapped in lake ice in Siberia)

Health Risks
Rising levels of ultra-violet radiation due to more radiations trapped by the darker exposed surfaces may cause more cancer cases. Other health impacts of climate change are related to heat stress, waterborne diseases, poor air quality, extreme weather events, and diseases transmitted by insects and rodents.

In the Polar regions and Northern Europe, or equivalently in the higher latitudes and altitudes which have been exposed to very low temperature disadvantages; warmer climate change is projected to bring some initial benefits. They include :

reduced demand for heating,
more navigable northern sea routes,
increased tourism opportunities,
earlier crop planting, more favorable agricultural conditions
longer growing season, increased crop yields and
more productive fisheries and a pole-ward shift of fish
increased forest growth.

But these will be outweighed by threats to indigenous peoples and the habitats of animals and plants. With continued warming, further melting of ice and glaciers is projected to induce more frequent floods, endangered ecosystems and increasing ground instability. Observations from 1979 to 1990 reveal an increase in the storm track activity towards the polar regions. Therefore on a longer term basis, negative impacts are likely to outweigh positive ones.

References and related news:

The Impacts Climate Change will have on Avalanche Activity: Taiga.net
Artiic Warming Threatens People, Wildllife: MSNBC
Arctic Thaw Threatens Siberian Permafrost: Independent.UK. June 14 2008

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