The Obama administration plans to designate more than 200,000 square miles in Alaska as protected, critical habitat for the endangered polar bear, the Interior Department announced yesterday. The proposed area covers a vast swath of sea ice off Alaska’s northwest coast, as well as barrier islands and a coastal region where the bears make their dens. The area, the largest single designation of protected habitat for any species, encompasses the entire range of the two polar bear populations that exist on American land and territorial waters. Government scientists estimate that there are roughly 3,500 bears in the two groups, known the Chukchi Sea and the Southern Beaufort Sea populations [The New York Times]. The bears are threatened by the gradual disappearance of their sea ice habitat due to global warming.
The move could lead to new restrictions on offshore drilling for oil and gas in Alaska’s waters. Federal law prohibits agencies from taking actions that may adversely affect critical habitat and interfere with polar bear recovery…. Designation as critical habitat would not, in itself, bar oil or gas development, but would make consideration of the effect on polar bears and their habitat an explicit part of any government-approved activity [AP]. The proposed federal rule will now be subject to public comment, and the final rule is expected to be announced next year.
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Image: flickr / longhorndave
Arctic sea ice melting, which scientists have linked to global warming, may be a boon for the shipping industry. As the sea ice continues to melt a shipping passage to Russia’s north is becoming more navigable, and now two German ships are close to completing the first trip from Asia to Europe via the Arctic shortcut. However, walruses that live in the Arctic could care less, since their sea ice habitat is rapidly disappearing.
Thousands of walruses are congregating on Alaska’s northwest coast, a sign that their Arctic sea ice environment has been altered by climate change. Chad Jay, a U.S. Geological Survey walrus researcher, said Wednesday that about 3,500 walruses were near Icy Cape on the Chukchi Sea, some 140 miles southwest of Barrow [AP]. Walruses wear themselves out diving for clams, and need to rest on the sea ice between meals. Since the sea ice is disappearing, they are turning to the shore for a break. Federal managers and researchers worry that so many walruses in one location could lead to a deadly stampede or could drive off prey. Highlighting the animals’ peril, the Obama administration is considering adding walruses to the endangered species list.
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At the bottom of the Arctic Sea lie vast deposits of methane gas trapped in frozen, icy forms called methane hydrates, and climate scientists would very much prefer that it remains trapped down there. Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas, and some researchers worry that a warming ocean may melt the icy structures, allowing the gas to travel up through the water to the atmosphere, where it could further contribute to global warming. Now, scientists who have been scanning the seas for signs of trouble say they may have found some.
The researchers spotted 250 plumes of methane gas bubbling up through the sea north of Norway. The region where the team found the plumes is being warmed by the West Spitsbergen current, which has warmed by 1 °C over the past 30 years. “Hydrates are stable only within a particular range of temperatures,” says [study coauthor Tim] Minshull. “So if the ocean warms, some of the hydrates will break down and release their methane” [New Scientist]. However, the scientists couldn’t prove that the methane is being released as a direct result of the warming, and say it’s possible there have always been methane seeps like these.
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After 120,000 years of slumbering in a Greenland glacier beneath almost two miles of ice, an ultra-small bacteria has been resurrected by the patient efforts of scientists. After incubating the bacteria for almost a year in water that was just above freezing temperature, colonies of the tiny purple-brown bacteria began to grow in a petri dish. Researchers say the bacteria’s resilience provides clues to how life can survive in hostile environments like the Arctic–and maybe even other planets.
The Herminiimonas glaciei bug is not the oldest to ever be resurrected, but it’s the first “ultramicrobacteria” to be revived. Ultramicrobacteria, tiny even by bacterial standards, are about 10 to 50 times smaller than the common human intestinal microbe E. coli. Their diminutive size could give the bacteria a survival advantage over other microorganisms. H. glaciei, for example, is thought to have survived in thin capillaries of nutrient-rich water in the Greenland glacier that would have been too tight a fit for larger bacteria [National Geographic News].
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As global warming gradually melts away the sea ice in the Arctic Ocean, the oil and gas deposits buried in that inaccessible region are becoming a lot less theoretical to the five northern nations with claims to those riches. “For better or worse, limited exploration prospects in the rest of the world combined with technological advances make the Arctic increasingly attractive for development,” said Paul Berkman, … who specialises in the politics of the Arctic [The Guardian]. Now, a new study has estimated how much oil and gas may lie beneath the Arctic seabed, declaring that it contains about 30 percent of the planet’s undiscovered natural gas reserves and 13 percent of its undiscovered oil.
Researchers estimate that the Arctic holds about about 83 billion barrels of undiscovered oil, but say that’s not enough to challenge the dominance of the oil-rich Persian Gulf states. Meanwhile, the researchers say that the Arctic’s estimated 1,550 trillion cubic feet of natural gas is concentrated in marine territory claimed by Russia, ensuring that Russia will continue to be the world’s largest producer of gas. “These findings suggest that in the future the … pre-eminence of Russian strategic control of gas resources in particular is likely to be accentuated and extended,” said Donald L. Gautier, lead author of the study [AP].
Russia has not been shy about pressing its claim to the polar region: In 2007 two Russian civilian mini-submarines descended to the seabed to collect geological and water samples and drop a titanium canister containing the Russian flag [AP]. The other four northernmost nations — Canada, the United States, Norway, and Denmark (via Greenland) — have also sought some jurisdiction over parts of the Arctic.
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The Obama administration announced on Friday that it will keep a Bush-era rule that limits the steps that the government can take to protect polar bears. The rule prevents the Endangered Species Act from being used to curb greenhouse gas emissions, even though those emissions contribute to the shrinking of polar bear habitat by causing global warming and melting Arctic sea ice. The decision comes despite recent moves to undo former president Bush’s environmental legacy. It was announced on Friday by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, who rejected special authority given to him by Congress and the pleas of Democratic lawmakers, environmentalists and scientists to overturn the regulation [Greenwire].
According to federal officials, the Endangered Species Act was written for a different kind of threat. In cases where an animal is threatened by logging, trapping or land development, it is used to identify—and punish—individual actions that harm them. That framework cannot be applied to climate change, they said, because the sources of that problem are global [San Francisco Chronicle]. Salazar said that the polar bear will still be listed as “threatened,” but instead of protecting it through the Endangered Species Act, the administration would push for legislation to limit U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. A “comprehensive global change strategy” is needed, he said.
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New oil and gas drilling in the Arctic ocean off the coast of Siberia could be powered by floating nuclear power plants, according to Russia’s nuclear energy agency, and off-shore plants may also be built to provide energy for remote towns and military outposts.
The Russian nuclear agency has reportedly signed a deal to build four plants for towns in the far northern Siberian Republic of Yakutiya, and is currently constructing its first floating nuclear plant for a defense facility by the White Sea. But environmental groups are most alarmed at the prospect of using the portable plants to power oil and gas drilling. The 70-megawatt plants, each of which would consist of two reactors on board giant steel platforms, would provide power to Gazprom, the oil firm which is also Russia’s biggest company. It would allow Gazprom to power drills needed to exploit some of the remotest oil and gas fields in the world in the Barents and Kara seas. The self-propelled vessels would store their own waste and fuel and would need to be serviced only once every 12 to 14 years [The Guardian].
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The 340 residents of Newtok, Alaska will soon be among the first “climate refugees” in the United States. Global warming has battered the tiny coastal town: As average yearly temperatures rise, coastal ice shelves melt as does the permafrost on which the town sits. The Ninglick River has overtaken the town as the ground level simultaneously sinks [Backpacker blog]. As a result, the town’s scattered buildings are connected by a network of boardwalks across the mud.
With the forces of nature arrayed against them, the townspeople have now voted to relocate their town to a new site nine miles inland, on higher ground by the river. “We are seeing the erosion, flooding and sinking of our village right now,” said Stanley Tom, a Yup’ik Eskimo and tribal administrator for the Newtok Traditional Council…. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has estimated that moving Newtok could cost $130 million. Twenty-six other Alaskan villages are in immediate danger, with an additional 60 considered under threat in the next decade, according to the corps [CNN].
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Tourism to Antarctica is likely to soon be regulated, following a joint session last week of the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting and the Arctic Council. At the meeting, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called for tighter controls on cruise ships and tourists to preserve the continent’s pristine beauty and endangered wildlife.
Citing concerns about the recent Antarctic ice bridge collapse, Clinton spoke about the fragile environment of the region and the damage that global warming has already caused. She pointed both to the impact of cruise ships on the environment and to safety issues for visitors. Incidents last year in which two ships ran aground and another hit an iceberg have raised concerns about fuel spills and other environmental hazards, as well as passenger safety. Said Clinton: “We have submitted a resolution that would place limits on landings from ships carrying large numbers of tourists.” Ms. Clinton also called for “greater international cooperation” to avoid further degradation of “the environment around Antarctica” [The New York Times].
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Workers taking a biological census have just completed their first 10-year count of marine organisms living near the North and South poles, and they found more inhabitants than anyone expected. They found some 13,000 kinds of animals living at one pole or the other, or, in a surprising number of cases, at both” [Science News]. The Census of Marine Life began the project in 2000 and involves thousands of researchers worldwide, hundreds of whom participated in more than a dozen expeditions to both poles.
The complete report will be issued next year, but a summary of findings has just been released and reports about 7,500 species in the Antarctic region and 5,500 in the Arctic. The poles were found to share 235 species, although further DNA testing is being conducted to confirm that they are identical, and that they do not just look alike. Among the “bi-polar” organisms are worms, crustaceans, and birds, as well as great whales, which after centuries of whaling … had been thought to remain only in the North Pacific and along the west coast of North America [Environment News Service]. Some of the bi-polar species identified, such as two snail-like species that have become almost as filmy as jellyfish and flutter through seawater instead of crawling, are not known from anywhere in between the poles [Science News].
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The Arctic’s ice may be melting, but a vote by a federal fishing council makes it likely that fishing trawlers won’t be moving in to look for rich harvests in the newly accessible Arctic waters. In a preemptive move, the council voted to ban commercial fishing in almost 200,000 square nautical miles of the Chukchi and Beaufort seas along Alaska’s northern coast. These areas are not currently fished, but sea ice melt and the northward migration of certain fish species, such as salmon, raises the possibility that they would be in the not too distant future [Scientific American]. If the U.S. commerce secretary approves the proposal, the ban will remain in place until scientific studies can determine whether fishing can be conducted sustainably in the Arctic.
Says Jim Ayers, of the conservation group Oceana: “Global climate change is making everyone think differently up here and making them understand that precautionary approaches are best.” … The unanimous vote was unusual in that it was largely supported by industry and conservation groups alike and because it was the first time the United States had acted to close a fishery as a result of climate change instead of in reaction to overfishing [The New York Times].
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The surprising find of a freshwater, tropical turtle fossil in Arctic Canada suggests that the first turtles to migrate from Asia to North America may have taken the most direct route, swimming and island hopping straight through the Arctic Ocean. This was possible, researchers say, because the Arctic was warmer and ice-free 90 million years ago, when carbon dioxide levels were extraordinarily high. “The fossil record is giving us more and more information about how ancient animals responded to a warming world,” [says] geophysicist John Tarduno…. “They moved toward the poles” [Wired News].
The freshwater turtle was able to survive in the ocean, Tarduno says, because of a floating freshwater highway that led from Russia to Canada. Numerous rivers from the adjacent continents would have poured fresh water into the ancient Arctic sea…. Fresh water, which is lighter than marine water, may have rested on top of the salty ocean water allowing animals such as the turtle to migrate with relative ease [Telegraph].
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Several new studies of ice loss at the earth’s poles paint a distressing picture of global warming’s impact on those fragile ecosystems, and one study warns that changes in the Arctic climate can have a large impact on the rest of the world. In the first study, researchers determined that more than 2 trillion tons of landlocked ice in Greenland, Alaska, and Antarctica have melted since 2003, a melting trend that researchers expect to continue. Using new satellite technology that measures changes in mass in mountain glaciers and ice sheets, NASA geophysicist Scott Luthcke concluded that the losses amounted to enough water to fill the Chesapeake Bay 21 times. “The ice tells us in a very real way how the climate is changing,” said Luthcke [CNN].
Melting of land ice, unlike sea ice, increases sea levels very slightly. Between Greenland, Antarctica and Alaska, melting land ice has raised global sea levels about one-fifth of an inch in the past five years, Luthcke said. Sea levels also rise from water expanding as it warms [AP]. The amount by which sea levels will rise as a result of global warming is still uncertain. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change gives an official estimate of a seven-inch to two-foot rise by 2100, but researchers say conditions at the poles are changing too quickly for confident predictions.
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The Arctic plains of Greenland may not seem like a very dynamic place in the autumn, as the cold descends and the topsoil slowly freezes. But researchers who lingered there into the darker months last year discovered that there’s more happening than meets the eye: Methane emissions from the ground spike every fall, just when they were expected to be dropping off to zero. Says lead author Torben Christensen: “Mother Nature is showing us something that is really surprising…. Nobody would expect to have loads of gas seeping out from a frozen environment” [Reuters].
Methane is created when bacteria in the soil feed on rotting organic matter, a decomposition process that requires the warmth of spring and summer. But Christensen hypothesizes that the methane released in the fall is the end of a process that began months earlier. “Most of the methane is produced during the warm summer months, but not all of it is emitted then,” says Christensen. At the Greenland site, for example, only the uppermost 30 to 50 centimeters of soil thaws each summer. In autumn, the ground freezes from above. The top layer of soil freezes and expands, pressurizing the soil beneath, Christensen contends. Because the underlying permafrost is impermeable, any methane that has accumulated in the thawed soil during the summer is squeezed out and forced to the surface [Science News].
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There’s oil in that thar Arctic, and lots of it; that’s what the U.S. Geological Survey has to say after conducting the most comprehensive survey of the Arctic’s energy resources to date. The USGS says the polar region contains one-fifth of the world’s undiscovered oil and natural gas resources, which amounts to 90 billion barrels of oil and 1,670 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. The report is bound to fuel calls for oil companies to increase drilling in the Arctic Ocean, and is also guaranteed to spark protests from environmentalists who advocate a shift away from fossil fuels.
The oil is considered “technically recoverable” using existing technology, but the survey did not consider the cost of overcoming obstacles to drilling, such as permanent sea ice or deep ocean waters…. Oil companies have already spent billions to secure leases to explore some of the uncharted waters [AP]. Ironically, much of the new exploration is being made possible by global warming caused by the burning of fossil fuels; melting ice caps have opened up prospects that were once considered too harsh to explore [The New York Times].
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