Climate Changes Affect on Arctic and Antarctic Animals and Their Homes

Climate Changes Affect on Arctic and Antarctic Animals and their homes

Christian

Smolinski

Penguins, polar bears and other well known animals that live in the poles are being affected by climate change. These changes in temperature and weather are destroying sea ice and negatively affecting or in some cases helping certain animals.

In the case of penguins, one of the largest colonies of emperor penguins was recently fled in the thousands as melting sea ice made it so that barely any new chicks were born. While it might not have an impact on the species as a whole because most fled to a colony 55 kilometers away causing that colonies population to increase 10 fold and emperor penguins live long enough to have more opportunities to mate, it still is an ominous sign. It is also worrying because, as Phil Tranthan a penguin ecologist says “I thought the Weddell Sea would be one of the last places we would see this, the fact that these penguins are still vulnerable is a surprise.” He says this because this area was thought to be highly insulated from the changes all around the continent.

In the case of narwhals, sea ice is a place for them to hide from predators but now the more it melts the more vulnerable they are to killer whales.

One of the saddest, most apparently affected animals are the walruses. Because their habitats are disappearing are forced to crowd in very small areas to the point that young walruses are being crushed to death. Not only this but to find more room they are climbing high areas like mountains, but they have poor eyesight on land so lots of them fall and tumble down the mountain to their death.

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Now on to a species that we all know about, polar bears. Polar bears need sea ice to hunt for themselves and females have to also hunt for their young. The problem is the ice is melting means that polar bears have less area to hunt seals but it also takes more energy swimming and exploring to find food that they waste more energy for their reserves and they have less to feed their young.

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How do we fix this?

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While at first it might seem like the arctic and even ocean are doomed their are a few ways we can try to slow down or reverse global warming. One major problem is deforestation. Trees are amazing at reducing greenhouse gases and giving everything oxygen but many people and companies are cutting down trees at an alarming rate. Luckily many organizations are trying to help plant trees. One major group is The Arbor Day Foundation, a nonprofit organization that tries to help plant as many trees as possible using donations. Recently a large Youtuber called Mr Beast teamed up with them to try and plant 20,000,000 trees by January 1, 2020. This website is called Team Trees and you can donate to the right now. For every dollar you donate they will plant 1 tree. So far they at are around 17 million trees.

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Another thing many people are doing including myself is buying solar panels. By doing this it is cutting down on the amount of greenhouse gases we produce by using renewable energy. Other types of renewable energy are wind and hydro. Another thing you can do is try to use less fossil fuels, for example if you are going to a place and it's super close by just walk or bike there instead. I know that some parents wont let you go out like that but if you are both going you can just walk together. Another thing is you can get a more green car, even if the very new ones can be expensive but buying used ones can sometimes reduce you carbon footprint even more. Also if you don't want to buy a new car and the location is to far away to walk then you can carpool with multiple people so everyone only gives the emissions of one person. Lastly, although this technically isn't reducing global warming it does help save animals by cleaning up beaches so trash doesn't kill fish or even make it's way to the arctic or antarctic.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/04/arctic-ecosystem-ice-disappear-ecosystem-polar-bears-fish

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVJzQc9ELTE

https://sites.middlebury.edu/climatechange/2018/05/02/how-to-solve-global-warming/

https://sharkresearch.rsmas.miami.edu/effects-of-global-warming-on-polar-bears-in-the-arctic/

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