Changes To Antarctic Ice Suffocating Seals
source: http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2008/05/28/2258408.htm?site=science&topic=latest
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- JanforGore
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Changes to the Antarctic ice shelf are causing seals to fight for air and penguins to give up on their young.
These are the findings of a new study, which illustrates the direct impact climate change is having on the physiology, behaviour and survival of Antarctic species.
In 1998, ecologist and evolutionary biologist Associate Professor Terrie Williams of the University of California at Santa Cruz and her team began a study on Weddell seals in Antarctica.
Three years later, an enormous iceberg detached near Antarctica's McMurdo Sound. According to Williams and her colleagues, the event was caused by global warming, which has likely been melting and weakening ice at the poles.
The 10,900 square kilometre iceberg, named B-15, drifted westward and lodged on nearby Ross Island.
The impact upon the animals of the region was immediate.
"Our first clue that there was a problem was that the seals were not returning to their usual pupping areas, and that there were fewer seals even later in the season," says Williams.
She and her colleagues noticed that the ice around Ross Island did not experience its usual "break-out" that year.
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But we shouldn't care about what our actions are doing to other species,right? Afterall, humans are omnipotent over all the Earth... the evidence of that starkly seen based on its decay.
These are the findings of a new study, which illustrates the direct impact climate change is having on the physiology, behaviour and survival of Antarctic species.
In 1998, ecologist and evolutionary biologist Associate Professor Terrie Williams of the University of California at Santa Cruz and her team began a study on Weddell seals in Antarctica.
Three years later, an enormous iceberg detached near Antarctica's McMurdo Sound. According to Williams and her colleagues, the event was caused by global warming, which has likely been melting and weakening ice at the poles.
The 10,900 square kilometre iceberg, named B-15, drifted westward and lodged on nearby Ross Island.
The impact upon the animals of the region was immediate.
"Our first clue that there was a problem was that the seals were not returning to their usual pupping areas, and that there were fewer seals even later in the season," says Williams.
She and her colleagues noticed that the ice around Ross Island did not experience its usual "break-out" that year.
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But we shouldn't care about what our actions are doing to other species,right? Afterall, humans are omnipotent over all the Earth... the evidence of that starkly seen based on its decay.
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