Polar bears are often used as the example for the effects of global warming on wildlife and environment around the world, and a new study suggests that two thirds of polar bears in the world will have died off by 2050 and the whole of the population in Alaska will have disappeared. This is happening because of the thinning of ice in the Arctic, caused by global warming.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20646605/dis.../20645362/
That is really bad news Bill!! Although ferious they do not deserve extinction..
Fingers crossed that the scientists don't know what they're talking about. Global warming (while it clearly exists) seems to have spawned an endless industry based upon scare stories, speculation and computer models, which may or may not be correct. And woe-betide anyone who dares to question the dogma that we are fed from the scientific pulpit.
I thought that the theory was that if the ice caps keep melting (although there now seems to be some dispute over the predicted rate), the resulting lowering of the global water temperature will lead to a new ice-age. There was a claim that global warming would also stop the gulf stream. However, I also heard that the gulf stream is governed by the earth's rotation, not temperature.
Whilst we should be doing everything we can to protect the earth and its resources, I take all these apocalyptic announcements with a liberal pinch of salt.
The last news I read abour polar bears is that far from declining, they were thriving, despite "global warming". Incidentally, while there is a great deal of noise about the arctic ice melting, the media don't shout so loud about the fact that the antarctic ice shelf is growing at a rate of 8% per year!
I hope the scientists are wrong too - I'm sure in a way they do too. The media most of the time doesn't know what it's talking about, which is why I try and read magazines like New Scientist as much as possible because the people in there on the whole are experts in their field. I'm not saying that there is no room for debate, and the conseqeunces of the warming are still very much open to debate as it seems to me that weather is such a complex thing that what you expect to happen doesn't always turn out the same as what actually happens.
From what I have read, the polar ice caps are shrinking all the time. I'd be very interested to see any resource that says otherwise, do you have a link?
From what I have read, the polar ice caps are shrinking all the time. I'd be very interested to see any resource that says otherwise, do you have a link?
I did find several, while I was doing some research for a talk I was due to give, but didn't save them, however, here is one: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/200...080830.htm
Thanks for the link, it was a very interesting read. The study doesn't show that greenland ice sheet interior is shrinking on average although some parts are and some parts are expanding, which is surprsing. It does say that there still does need to be a lot more research done to find out whether it is shrinking, especially as the article talks about a threshold where "losses from melting would exceed accumulation from increases in snowfall - then the meltdown of the Greenland ice sheet would be on".