How Ice Seals and Caribou are Adapting to the Change in Climate: The Second Largest Contribution to Sea Level Rise in Greenland

The second largest contributor to sea-level rise is the melting of the ice sheet in Greenland. Water expanding while it warms is the largest contributor.

Moon pointed out that sea level rise is causing coastal erosion, flooded roads, disruption of sewer systems, and contamination of drinking water.

Ice seal populations remain healthy despite warming water and declining sea ice. Moon said that seals seem to be adapting to the changing climate by eating warm-water fish. “But we don’t know how well they can continue to adapt as warming continues,” she said.

One main reason is that they’re often eating less. Arctic winters are getting wetter, and freezing rain can create an icy crust on the snow. It’s often not worth the energy for caribou to break through the ice for a nibble of the lichen found underneath.

Climate Change Effects on Arctic Life and Lives in the Presence of Permafrost, Forests, and Wildfires

“With lower levels of climate change, you get lower levels of emissions from permafrost,” he said. That should make us work towards more aggressive emissions reductions.

The Arctic’s permafrost, which stays frozen year-round, has kept planet-heating carbon sequestered for thousands of years. Northern permafrost has been estimated to hold about twice as much carbon as there is in the atmosphere. A Tundra is a landscape where shrubs, grasses, and mosses take in carbon dioxide from the air. Plants eventually release that CO2 back into the atmosphere when they decompose or if they burn. Cold temperatures in the north slow the decomposition ofbacteria, keeping them in the soil.

Brendan Rogers, a scientist at the Woodwell Climate Research Center who contributed to the Arctic Report Card, said emissions from the region are likely to continue as the climate warms.

The carbon dioxide leak from the tundra is small in comparison to the greenhouse gas emissions each year. But it adds to the many ways life in the Arctic is getting harder. Caribou populations have dropped by 65 percent over the last few decades as global warming transforms the landscape to which they’ve adapted, for example. They are trying to stay cool on hot days, and they have been documented eating less. And caribou health has cascading impacts on the local people that rely on the herds for food.

Wildfires are another growing problem since dead vegetation makes for a great fuel source. Blazes quickly release carbon trapped in plants and soil. Wildfires across areas with permafrost in North America have increased since the middle of the 20th century. Bigger fires and more carbon pollution can be a result.

The warming directly influences global sea-level rise, weather patterns, wildlife migrations, and other effects of human-caused climate change—all driven primarily by burning fossil fuels.

Donald Trump gets ready to take office in January, and this year’s report comes as a result. Trump wants to increase oil exploration and drilling in the Arctic and reduce government action on climate change.

Sue Natali, a scientist at the Woodwell Climate Research Center and contributor to the Arctic Report Card, declined to comment on the incoming administration. But she said this year’s report demonstrates the importance of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and continuing climate change research.

Climate change is bringing an ongoing and rapid change to the Arctic, Antarctic, and permafrost ecosystems of the U.S.

“Once you have that chicken out of your freezer, it’s thawing and all those microbes are getting to work, breaking down the chicken, making it rot,” she said. The same thing is happening to the permafrost.

“Climate change is not bringing about a new normal. Instead, climate change is bringing ongoing and rapid change,” Twila Moon, lead editor of the Arctic Report Card and deputy lead scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center, said at the conference yesterday.

Some species are finding ways to adjust. In Alaska, ice seals are able to choose from different kinds of fish, depending on what is available. Understanding the environment’s changing might help humans adapt. The report was produced by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) working with 97 scientists from 11 different countries.