WWF climate work in the Arctic and the Antarctica

The polar regions of the world have possibly suffered more from global warming than any other area. Yet we are talking about 2 entirely different areas with discrete characteristics: Antarctica is a continent with a huge landmass, covered with the biggest glaciers on Earth. The Arctic is a sea, covered with floating frozen sea water.

Hence the different impacts:

Arctic

The Arctic ice has been reducing dramatically over the last few decades. The year 2005 showed the smallest summer ice measurement, 2004 the second smallest. Warming has a dramatic effect on the Arctic – white ice – which reflects much of the sunlight back into space, thus avoiding the greenhouse gas effect, is replaced by dark water which absorbs the incoming light and only radiates back warmth (infrared radiation). This is one of the reasons why the Arctic warms twice as fast as the average temperature of the world.

The 8 Arctic governments (Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, and the United States) commissioned a large scale assessment of the situation. The ‘Arctic Climate Impact Assessment’ was published in November 2004 and is available online. The assessment predicts that if our emissions and energy use do not change quickly, the Arctic summers will be ice-free in less than 100 years.

Yet the joint political bodies of the 8 countries have so far failed to consider, recommend or take drastic steps to combat climate change.

David against Goliath?
Maybe – but you know how that match ended… 

People in the Arctic already suffer from a shortening winter season (the ‘good’ season in the Arctic where everything from hunting to transport on the ice is possible), unpredictable ice cover, more icebergs, melting permafrost destabilising buildings, and changing weather. In 2005, the Inuit Circumpolar Council submitted an official complaint against the United States government to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, claiming that the emissions from the United States – and their obvious unwillingness to reduce those emissions – poses a threat to the traditional culture of the Inuits.


The plight of the polar bear

Nature also suffers – for instance, the official Red List of threatened animals has recently upgraded the polar bear’s status to ‘vulnerable’ and threatened by extinction because of global warming. Polar bears hunt seals on the pack ice – this is their main feeding season. They also need ice and snow for digging dens to raise their young. As the ice melts faster, the rich hunting season is shortened, lengthening the amount of time polar bears go without food. Recently polar bears were found cannibalising on each other – another sign of drastic food shortages.





Antarctica

Observations of climate change in Antarctica over the last ten years have shown a sudden and dramatic impact of global warming, especially on the ice shelves in the region of the Antarctic Peninsula.

The sudden collapse of Larsen B, a much larger part made the headlines all over the world. What has since become obvious is that glaciers from more central parts of the continent are disintegrating.

WWF works with a renowned Antarctic explorer, Robert Swan. Mr Swan who has returned to Antarctica every year for almost 20 years, says that in recent times he has found grass in the Antartic. There is no record of grass ever having grown there before.

The Larsen ice shelves have been under intense scrutiny, since the first – and smallest – collapsed in 1995. Ice shelves are ice packs on the sea close to the coast, often many kilometres wide, and on average 220 meters thick.

Glaciologist Dr David Vaughan of the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) said: "In 1998, BAS predicted the demise of more ice shelves around the Antarctic Peninsula. Since then warming on the peninsula has continued and we watched as piece-by-piece Larsen B has retreated. We knew what was left would collapse eventually, but the speed of it is staggering. Hard to believe that 500 billion tonnes of ice sheet has disintegrated in less than a month."

While even under a massive warming scenario it would take a very long time for ALL Antarctic ice to melt, even a small fraction impacts sea level rise significantly. Currently the British Antarctic Survey estametes that ice melt from Antarctica and Greenland together amounts to about one third of global average sea level rise (~2mm per annum).