The Arctic
Sea Ice is Melting
If the Arctic’s
ice melts there won’t be animals living there: Polar bears, penguins and sea
lions face extinction if they lose their habitat. One solution to this problem
is to stop contributing to global warming.
Arctic sea ice has been melting in the few past decades driven by
warming air temperature, warming ocean water temperature, and new, extreme
weather patterns, all of which are caused by or accelerated by human-caused
Global Warming.
Sea ice is a thin, fragile, solid layer of frozen ocean water that
forms in the Arctic and Antarctic oceans. It grows in the winter and melts in
the summer.
The Arctic is very important because sea ice keeps the Polar
Regions cool and helps moderate climate change thanks to its ability to reflect
the Sun’s radiation. Less sea ice and more ocean surface will lead to a warmer
Arctic, and a warmer climate.
Global warming causes the sea ice to melt and the sea level to rise.
If the sea level rises, continents will begin to be flooded. Arctic ice melting
will cause only 4 mm sea level rise. However the Antarctic ice melting will
cause 7 m sea level rise putting nearly one-third of the world’s population in
danger.
Sea ice melting is impacting the whole ecosystem and the life of
many animals mainly the polar bears, the penguins, the cods, the seals, and
even the birds and the whales. The polar bears population is significantly
reduced.
The Arctic ice is shrinking at an alarming rate of 9 percent per
year according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC). If the
trend continues, the Arctic may well become ice-free in summer for
the first time by 2050. Some models suggest sea ice will disappear by 2100
How to prevent that from happening? What
are the solutions? How can we stop that?
Many solutions may help prevent the
disaster. Some are costly and hard to implement, some require big companies and
countries interventions, and others can be implemented by everyone, as each
person can reduce his own carbon footprint.
The solutions mainly consist on reducing carbon emissions, but simultaneously
pulling carbon out of the atmosphere, and also on refreezing the sea ice at the
same time!
Reduce carbon emission:
If we want to decrease the pollution, we
will have to use more clean energies, alternative and renewable ones (wind
turbines, solar energy etc…) and less polluting and fossil fuels.
We will also have to:
-
Reduce, reuse,
recycle in order to minimise garbage, waste, plastic, aluminium…
-
Save gas and
walk more while going to office, school, shop
-
Eat local in
order to reduce transportation
-
Use less heat
and air conditioning, Save electricity and hot water
Absorb carbon:
Planting
trees. Trees are part of the solution as they reduce CO2 amount in the
atmosphere.
Tropical
forest conservation and restoration could constitute half of the global warming
solution at a low cost.
Refreeze the sea ice:
It may seem unrealistic but it’s a real
solution proposed by a research team from Arizona. They
propose to build 10 million wind-powered pumps over the Arctic ice cap. These
would be used to pump water to the surface of the ice where it would freeze,
thickening the cap. Thicker ice would mean longer-lasting ice.
It will cost $500bn.
Other solutions
Other highly imaginative solutions are
being suggested and studied. Like lightning the arctic surface in order to
reflect more solar radiation, or to spray sea water in the air to form clouds,
or to inject reflective particles in the air …
The situation is causing a grave concern,
and researchers are working hard trying to be as inventive as possible!
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