Download or read book The Future Polar Bear The Impact of the Vanishing Sea Ice on an Arctic Ecosystem written by Louis Beyens and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Het Noordpoolgebied staat volop in de kijker. Afbrokkelende gletsjers, ontdooiend permafrost en de afnemende zee-ijs bedekking zijn gekende beelden uit de media en duidelijke signalen van de intense opwarming van het Arctische ecosysteem. De dramatische afname van het zee-ijs heeft niet alleen gevolgen voor de dieren die er leven en voor de Inuit, maar ook voor het klimaat op de gematigde breedtegraden. Aan de hand van uniek fotomateriaal en onderbouwd door jarenlange wetenschap en ervaring bespreken Louis Beyens en Rinie van Meurs de processen en de impact van klimaatopwarming in het poolgebied.00Het icoon bij uitstek van het unieke zee-ijs ecosysteem is de ijsbeer. 'The Future Polar Bear' kijkt naar het leven, het verleden en de toekomst van deze toppredator. Kan deze superspecialist zich nog aanpassen? Wordt hij bedreigd in zijn voortbestaan of niet? Het boek geeft de nodige basis om de mediaberichten over het Noordpoolgebied, het zee-ijs en de ijsbeer in de juiste context te plaatsen.
Download or read book Disappearing Polar Bears and Permafrost written by United States. Congress. House. Committee on Science and Technology. Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 104 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Polar Bears Search for Ice written by Gillia M. Olson and published by Capstone. This book was released on 2010-07 with total page 18 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Describes polar bears and their disappearing habitat"-- Provided by publisher.
Download or read book On Thin Ice written by United States. Congress. House. Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate written by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-04-30 with total page 755 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the leading international body for assessing the science related to climate change. It provides policymakers with regular assessments of the scientific basis of human-induced climate change, its impacts and future risks, and options for adaptation and mitigation. This IPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate is the most comprehensive and up-to-date assessment of the observed and projected changes to the ocean and cryosphere and their associated impacts and risks, with a focus on resilience, risk management response options, and adaptation measures, considering both their potential and limitations. It brings together knowledge on physical and biogeochemical changes, the interplay with ecosystem changes, and the implications for human communities. It serves policymakers, decision makers, stakeholders, and all interested parties with unbiased, up-to-date, policy-relevant information. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
Download or read book If Polar Bears Disappeared written by Lily Williams and published by . This book was released on 2018-08-28 with total page 42 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Polar bears are threatened with extinction due to rapid climate change that's causing the ice where they hunt and live to melt at an alarming rate. This book explores what would happen if the sea ice melts, causing the extinction of polar bears, and how it would affect environments around the globe. Full color.
Download or read book Impacts of a Changing Arctic on Habitat Use and Behavior of Polar Bears Ursus Maritimus written by George M. Durner and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The world's polar bear (Ursus maritimus) population occurs only where Arctic sea ice is predominant during the annual cycle. The veneer of ice over marine waters allows polar bears to hunt the ice-dependent pinnipeds which they depend on for their survival. Since 1979 the extent and volume of sea ice has diminished, displacing polar bears from prey-rich waters and reducing the quality of remaining ice habitat. To conserve polar bears in a warming Arctic it is necessary to understand what sea ice types are preferred, how preferred habitats have and will changed, and to determine whether the movement behavior of polar bear has been altered to compensate for sea ice declines. To increase our understanding of polar bear response to a changing Arctic and inform decisions for polar bear conservation I used satellite telemetry data from adult female polar bears to develop coarse-grain, polar basin-wide resource selection functions (RSF) from passive microwave (PM) imagery of sea ice concentration and extent, and fine-grain Beaufort Sea RSFs from National Ice Center (NIC) data of sea ice age and composition. I used the coarse-grain RSFs to measure changes in optimal habitats between 1985-1995 and 1996-2006 for the polar basin. I then applied those RSFs to 10 general circulation models (GCM) predictions of 21 st century sea ice to quantify changes in polar bear preferred sea ice habitat. I used the fine-grain RSFs to identify sea ice structure and composition preferred by polar bears in the Beaufort Sea. I then compared the rate of habitat change indicated by the fine-grain RSFs to coarse-grain RSFs, GCM predictions, and sea ice extent and thickness. Finally, I examined the behavioral response of polar bears to compensate for a substrate that was constantly moving under their feet and how this response differed between the Beaufort and the Chukchi seas and from a period of relatively stable ice to a period of diminished sea ice. Within the polar basin and from 1985-1995 to 1996-2006 optimal sea ice habitats declined in all regions over contented shelf waters except for regions adjacent to northern Greenland and the northern shores of the Canadian Archipelago. When applied to GCMs to project 21 st century habitat conditions, habitat loss continued in the southern seas of the polar basin, from the Beaufort Sea in Alaska and Canada, across northern Russia, to the Barents Sea. Habitat loss was minimal, and sometimes improved, along the Arctic Ocean shores of Banks Island to northern Greenland. Optimal polar bear habitat declined most during summer; from an observed 1.0 million km 2 in 1985-1995 to a projected multi-model average of 0.32 million km2 in 2090-2099 (-68% change). Loss of winter habitat was less; from 1.7 million km 2 in 1985-1995 to 1.4 million km2 in 2090-2099 (-17% change). Despite projected declines of future habitat conditions actual changes may be occurring faster than predicted as observed habitat loss during 1985-2006 was greater than the loss predicted by GCM hindcasts. The fine-grain RSFs for the Beaufort Sea for 1999-2012 showed that polar bears selected pack ice in shallow continental shelf waters near land fast ice, ice edges, and young sea-ice during winter and spring. From breakup to freeze-up, when sea ice was often over waters >2500 m deep, polar bears selected high-concentration ice that minimized their distance from the continental shelf. In all seasons except summer the distribution of habitats preferred by polar bears coincided with the expected distribution of seal prey. During the years of this study both NIC- and PM- based RSFs showed a decline in habitat quality during breakup, summer and freeze-up. But habitat declines outpaced those predicted by GCMs, were similar to declines in overall ice extent, and lower than sea ice loss indicated by ice thickness trends. NIC-based RSFs provided an improvement for understanding the ecological relationship between polar bears and sea ice and that, despite overt declines in the quantity of sea ice, some preferred habitats persisted in every season throughout this study. Understanding changes in preferred sea ice habitats does not by itself explain energetic consequences of diminishing sea ice on polar bears. Changes in sea ice drift rates from thinning ice provides a link between the environment and the costs of locomotion by polar bears. In Chapter 3 I compared daily movement steps by polar bears relative to sea ice drift rates between the Beaufort and the Chukchi seas and across three periods with distinct sea ice characteristics: 1985-1995, 1996-2006 and 2007-2013. I used a continuous-time correlated random walk model to regularize radio collar locations to one every 24 hours. By accounting for daily sea ice drift I was able to derive ice-corrected "true" polar bear movements. Sea ice drift rates increased sequentially across the time periods and were greater in the Beaufort Sea than in the Chukchi Sea but the azimuth of ice drift remained unchanged across periods. Rates of bear movements and collars displacements were similar but their azimuths differed, suggesting that collar locations are not indicative of animal movements on a moving substrate. In either region bear movements were eastward and opposite or perpendicular to ice drift and distances between observations increased from 1985-1995 to 2007-2013. Polar bears in the Beaufort Sea responded to changes in ice drift directionally, while bears in the Chukchi Sea compensated by increasing the distance traveled between locations. As they moved from one location to the next, polar bears showed greater selection for higher quality habitat in 2007-2013 than in 1985-1995, suggesting that habitat quality had declined due to overt reductions in sea ice and increased energetic costs for polar bears to seek and remain in the best habitat. Optimal polar bear habitat in the polar basin will decline throughout the 21st century. Trends in habitat as predicted by observational data suggest that predictions of habitat decline from GCMs may not be realistically severe, i.e., habitat loss is occurring faster than predicted by models. However, habitat loss is not uniform throughout the Arctic as high latitude regions adjacent to north Greenland and the northern Canadian Archipelago are likely to retain sufficient sea ice habitat to serves as a refugia for a viable, albeit greatly reduced, polar bear population. Additionally, fine grain models indicate that some optimal habitat may persist even in an Arctic with reduced sea ice. That remnant habitat will be susceptible to an increasingly thinning ice cover and loss through stochastic events. In addition to overt declines in sea ice the energetic costs to polar bear to seek and occupy optimal sea ice habitat will likely increase as thinning sea ice becomes increasingly mobile due to the actions of winds and currents.
Download or read book Polar Bears on the Edge written by Morten Jørgensen and published by Spitsbergen-Svalbard.com. This book was released on 2015 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Do you like polar bears? Do you want polar bears to be around in 50 years? Do you think that climate change is the only major threat to polar bear survival? Do you believe that polar bears are adequately protected today? Would you like to contribute to saving polar bears today and in the future? If your answer to any of those questions is yes, you need to read this book. "This book is an eye-opener and should kick off extensive debates."Dr. Thor S. Larsen, professor emeritus, Member of the IUCN Polar Bear Specialist Group 1968-1985. "In this impassioned book Morten raises very important, provocative questions that are not being addressed by the international environmental groups." Art Wolfe, Award-winning conservation photographer. In this book, the author analyses the current status of the polar bear. And he punctures the myth that polar bears are well protected and managed today. While most people think that global warming is the overhanging threat to polar bear survival, the author documents that it is actually the continuation of an unsustainable hunting pressure that is driving the species towards extinction. Across 228 pages, interspersed with beautiful photographs, Morten Joergensen demonstrates how there are probably fewer polar bears than most authorities claim, how hunting is the greatest manageable threat to the species, how current protection measures are insufficient, how the animal has been commercialized and how lack of courage and honesty is allowing this scenario to continue. The book also contains a long string of realistic and very urgent recommendations for action - to save polar bears before they are gone forever.
Download or read book Examining Threats and Protections for the Polar Bear written by United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Environment and Public Works and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 484 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book On Thin Ice written by Richard Ellis and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2009-11-17 with total page 425 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From "a graceful writer who’s written some of the best natural history books of the past decade” (The New York Times Book Review) comes an urgent, stirring celebration and a rallying cry on behalf of one of earth's greatest natural treasures. Polar bears—fierce and majestic—have captivated us for centuries. Feared by explorers, revered by the Inuit, and beloved by zoo goers everywhere, they are a symbol for the harsh beauty and muscular grace of the Arctic. But as global warming threatens the ice caps’ integrity, the polar bear has also come to symbolize the environmental peril that has arisen due to harmful human practices. In the past twenty years alone, the world population of polar bears has shrunk by half. Today they number just 22,000.
Download or read book The Big Thaw written by Ed Struzik and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2009-07-14 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Canadian Science Writers' Association's Science in Society Book Award Banff Mountain Book Award Finalist The City of Edmonton Book Prize Finalist Shortlisted for the Wilfred Eggleston Award for Non-Fiction Climate change's effects are reshaping the Arctic profoundly. Landscapes are being radically transformed, animal habitats are disappearing, and natural resources are being revealed to an energy-starved world. Veteran Arctic journalist Ed Struzik took eleven trips throughout the north to document this rapidly changing land, gaining unprecedented access to scientific expeditions, native communities and security and sovereignty experts. The product of those trips, The Big Thaw is the only book that looks at global warming's wide-ranging impact on the Arctic. Struzik goes into the field with the world's leading polar bear scientist, skis on melting glaciers with glaciologists, travels the Northwest Passage on an aging icebreaker and stalks a carnivorous rogue walrus with an Inuit hunter. His journeys bring him up close to some of the world's most unique animals, from the iconic polar bear to the mysterious narwhal. Struzik melds the vivid stories of his experiences with fascinating explorations of the Arctic's past -- from the alligators and giant tortoises that inhabited the north 55 million years ago, to the 19th century explorers who died searching for the Open Polar Sea -- and its possible future as the center of international struggle, underground smuggling and ecological disaster.
Download or read book The Last Polar Bear written by Steven Kazlowski and published by Braided River. This book was released on 2008 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scientists agree that by the end of this century the polar bear will be the first mammal threatened with extinction due to climate change. "The Last Polar Bear" is the first book to fully document that story.The continued survival of these magnificent white bears in their warming, and melting, Arctic world is uncertain, yet their fate is also a wake-up call compelling us to act now to stem global warming. Through Steven Kazlowski's unparalleled imagery, the most critical environmental issue of our time is brought to life."The Last Polar Bear" places the reality of climate change in our hands. We see the plight of the polar bear, an animal already feeling the detrimental effects of our reliance on fossil fuels, as its icy habitat melts.Over the course of the last six years, wildlife photographer Steven Kazlowski has photographed the polar bear in its wild habitat, from Hershel Island in Canada to Point Hope in Alaska. "The Last Polar Bear" pairs his intimate images with anecdotes about his Arctic adventures, as well as authoritative essays about the polar bear in the context of climate change.Alaska based writers Richard Nelson, Charles Wohlforth, Nick Jans, and leading USGS polar bear biologist Steven C. Amstrup draw on decades of experience in the Arctic to cover the biological, cultural, and anthropological aspects of climate change. Dan Glick, long-time correspondent for "Newsweek", addresses the history of climate change while Frances Beinecke, president of the Natural Resources Defence Council, and Theodore Roosevelt IV offer perspectives on activism and politics.
Download or read book The Loneliest Polar Bear written by Kale Williams and published by Crown. This book was released on 2021-03-23 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A moving story of abandonment, love, and survival against the odds.”—Dr. Jane Goodall The heartbreaking and ultimately hopeful story of an abandoned polar bear cub named Nora and the humans working tirelessly to save her and her species, whose uncertain future in the accelerating climate crisis is closely tied to our own Six days after giving birth, a polar bear named Aurora got up and walked away from her den at the Columbus Zoo, leaving her tiny squealing cub to fend for herself. Hours later, Aurora still hadn’t returned. The cub was furless and blind, and with her temperature dropping dangerously, the zookeepers entrusted with her care felt they had no choice: They would have to raise one of the most dangerous predators in the world by hand. Over the next few weeks, a group of veterinarians and zookeepers worked around the clock to save the cub, whom they called Nora. Humans rarely get as close to a polar bear as Nora’s keepers got to their fuzzy charge. But the two species have long been intertwined. Three decades before Nora’s birth, her father, Nanuq, was orphaned when an Inupiat hunter killed his mother, leaving Nanuq to be sent to a zoo. That hunter, Gene Agnaboogok, now faces some of the same threats as the wild bears near his Alaskan village of Wales, on the westernmost tip of the North American continent. As sea ice diminishes and temperatures creep up year after year, Agnaboogok and the polar bears—and everyone and everything else living in the far north—are being forced to adapt. Not all of them will succeed. Sweeping and tender, The Loneliest Polar Bear explores the fraught relationship humans have with the natural world, the exploitative and sinister causes of the environmental mess we find ourselves in, and how the fate of polar bears is not theirs alone.
Download or read book Polar Tales written by Fredrik Granath and published by Rizzoli Publications. This book was released on 2023-09-12 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Arctic is the ground zero of climate change, and the polar bear is on the front line. Filled with groundbreaking photography that reveals the breathtaking landscapes of the Arctic and the transformations of the environment through the changing lives of polar bears, it's a firsthand report from the top of our planet. Polar Tales tells the story of an ice world in transformation and a planet nearing its tipping point--the moment when Earth's climate begins to change irreversibly. This book is both a celebration of the wildlife that inhabits this most unforgiving and beautiful environment imaginable--mountains, fjords, enormous glaciers, and the seemingly endless pack ice of the Arctic Ocean--and a cautionary tale of global warming. Rising temperatures have put the Arctic at risk, and the habitats--and lives--of the animals there are increasingly threatened. Set against the dramatic landscape of ice floes and ragged mountains, readers see how polar bears, foxes, seals, walruses, and reindeer now struggle to live in this vulnerable climate. Images of a polar bear mother as she takes her newborns out for their first hunt, a seal pup only hours old, and the spectacle of the polar night are reminders of what is at risk. The authors work like no other photographers: spending months in the field on their expeditions, they live among the polar bears, establishing an uneasy balance and unprecedented access to the world of the kings of the Arctic. Readers are rewarded with unique and stirring images that capture the harsh beauty of a world that few will experience firsthand.
Download or read book The Big Thaw written by Ed Struzik and published by Wiley. This book was released on 2011-02-14 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Canadian Science Writers' Association's Science in Society Book Award Banff Mountain Book Award Finalist The City of Edmonton Book Prize Finalist Shortlisted for the Wilfred Eggleston Award for Non-Fiction Climate change's effects are reshaping the Arctic profoundly. Landscapes are being radically transformed, animal habitats are disappearing, and natural resources are being revealed to an energy-starved world. Veteran Arctic journalist Ed Struzik took eleven trips throughout the north to document this rapidly changing land, gaining unprecedented access to scientific expeditions, native communities and security and sovereignty experts. The product of those trips, The Big Thaw is the only book that looks at global warming's wide-ranging impact on the Arctic. Struzik goes into the field with the world's leading polar bear scientist, skis on melting glaciers with glaciologists, travels the Northwest Passage on an aging icebreaker and stalks a carnivorous rogue walrus with an Inuit hunter. His journeys bring him up close to some of the world's most unique animals, from the iconic polar bear to the mysterious narwhal. Struzik melds the vivid stories of his experiences with fascinating explorations of the Arctic's past -- from the alligators and giant tortoises that inhabited the north 55 million years ago, to the 19th century explorers who died searching for the Open Polar Sea -- and its possible future as the center of international struggle, underground smuggling and ecological disaster.
Download or read book The Agreement on the Conservation of Polar Bears written by Thor Larsen and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 22 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Arctic Paradox written by Carolyn Kozak Loeffler and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By virtually any standard of measurement, the Arctic is hotter than ever before, physically, politically and emotionally. Rising ocean temperatures, opening sea lanes, disappearing pack ice and global fear of environmental devastation have combined to make the Arctic Ocean the great question mark about the future of the human species with ursus maritimus, the “sea bear,” standing as perhaps the most evocative symbol of our global responsibility and fate. In human eyes the polar bear has long been a paradoxical creature, mirroring a dilemma at the center of America’s relationship to the Arctic today. The region’s stretches of uninterrupted ecosystems and wilderness areas inspire strikingly disparate visions: a resource warehouse to some, and a sacred environmental preserve to others, pitting historical frontier identities against moral obligations to future generations. These conflicting visions of the Arctic ice pack and the bears who live there also symbolize the tension between the realities of consumerism and the ideals of global citizenship. In the last 150 years, our understanding of the polar bear has transitioned from ferocious to vulnerable, from a symbol of cold to a symbol of melt. An analysis of this change illuminates shifting historical perspectives and the roots of this ideological divide. This thesis demonstrates how polar bears first entered the American public consciousness as ferocious and sublime Arctic predators, before being commercialized, commodified, and eventually codified into the symbols they are today. Applied discourse analysis deconstructs how industrialization mediated the cultural shift of the polar bear from feared predator to vulnerable and politically contentious climate victim. Images and image analysis support the historical narrative, and act as entry points to our historic and contemporary understandings of American environmentalism.
