Feature Article January 29, 2004
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Did You Know That ...
... the ice cap at the north pole has lost 44% of its thickness since the 1950's, and the ice sheet on the top of Kilimanjaro in Africa may be entirely gone by 2015?
Spring breakup of the ice in Hudson's Bay is two weeks or so earlier now than it was 20 years ago. The Bay is frozen only in winter and spring, so from July to November the polar bears must stay on the land and live off their fat reserves. According to measurements of polar bears by Ian Stirling, senior scientist with the Canadian Wildlife Service, the birth rate and the weight of adult polar bears are both down about 10% from 1980. University of Alberta Biologist Andrew Derocher says that if present trends continue and the ice disappears from the Bay, the polar bears will also disappear.
Paul Epstein, the Associate Director of the Harvard University Center for Health and the Global Environment says " There's no longer any scientific doubt that global warming is taking place and the implications for public health are deeply troubling. We're now at a level of carbon dioxide that exceeds anything we've seen in the last 420,000 years."
Epstein says that as a result of global warming we are getting drought in some areas and flooding in others. Both plant and insect populations are migrating, and such conditions can trigger outbreaks of diseases such as West Nile virus and Dengue fever.
(For more on polar bears go to: nationalgeographic.com/magazine/0402. For discussion - Gray Merriam 335-3589)
