Tag: Greenland

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Greenland is loosing 30 million tonnes of ice per year.

The Greenland ice sheet is melting

The Greenland icesheet is vast, which can bee seen from this image, which had to be taken from space to show the scale.

Greenland is in fact only slightly bigger than Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Poland, Portugal, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom together. Looking at it another way, it is the size of the DRC in Africa, or is 71% of the size of India, and 80% of this vast landscape is covered in ice. 

Now we realize the scale of the ice on Greenland, we need to recognize that it is melting. 0.17% of all water on earth is locked up in ice on Greenland. Now, while that does not sound much, remember that the Antarctic ice cap is also melting, though currently far slower, and this consists of 1.56% of global water. If all the ice on Greenland melted, is enough to raise global sea levels by 7 meters, which would be the end of countries like Bangladesh among quite a few more.

So, the Greenland Ice sheet is loosing 30 million tonnes of Ice every hour! How can we put that in perspective? Given that an Olympic swimming pool contains 2500 cubic meters of water, this is the same as 12,000 extra Olympic swimming pools of water in the worlds oceans ever hour or 10 extra swimming pools every 3 seconds. It is not going to run out of water, any time soon, given that it currently has over 2 million cubic kilometres on the island. Never-the-less, this quantity of water hour in, hour out (it is loosing 720 million tonnes of ice per day, or 3/4 of a cubic kilometre every single day.

This is 20% than even researchers had thought, and it is perhaps unsurprising that this vast amount of fresh water being deposited into the ocean every day is having an impact on things like currents – the North atlantic ocean current is the only reason that places like the UK have warmer climates than similar latitudes in Canada.

Greenland has lost 1 trillion tonnes of ice since 1985 since my birth – and this is just from glaciers. 

Global warming is happening, and it is happening now. This is not something that you need to be aware that your children will have to face, it is something that we will all have to face in the next few decades.

This shows us: global warming is not something that we avoid and just leave to our children, this is our problem too.

White-beaked dolphin

White beaked dolphin

The white-beaked dolphin  is a marine mammal belonging 

to the family Delphinidae (oceanic dolphins) in the sub order Odontoceti (toothed whales). Their distribution is shown in the map.

The white-beaked dolphin is endemic to the cold temperate and subarctic waters of the North Atlantic Ocean, most commonly in seas less than 1,000 m (3,300 ft) deep. Due to the fact they are not fully adapted to Arctic conditions, they are more vulnerable to predators, most notably polar bears. Within this wider region, white-beaked dolphins are most commonly found in four locales: on the Labrador Shelf close to southwestern Greenland, around Iceland, off the northern and eastern coasts of Britain, and off the coast of Norway. In the Faroe Islands between Iceland and the United Kingdom the White-beaked dolphin is at risk of being hunted during drive catches of the long-finned pilot whales. They may also be incidentally trapped in the purse-sein and trawl nets of the area. There are no recognised subspecies.

The dolphin may easily be misidentified as the Atlantic white-sided dolphin, although the white-beaked is commonly found further north. The white-beaked dolphin is also typically larger, and does not have yellow streaks on its side.

Below is a video (no sound) of them filmed under water off the coast of the UK. Northern parts of the UK have populations, including Lyme bay and areas around the hebrides.

They are thought to number 100,000, so are listed as least concern.

Narwhal

Narwhal

Generally, the source of any so called unicorn horns, they have a tooth that can extend more than 3m from their mouths and some have 2. Most recent populations suggest around 170,000, Induit from Canada and Greenland have hunted them for both meat and ivory.

 

They migrate in winter, and much of their food comes from Arctic cod and Greenland Halibut and live around 50 years. Young narwhals are predated by both Polar bears at breathing holes and Greenland sharks.

They are essentially an odd looking species of dolphin. There are around 123,000 individuals, living in 12 different groups in areas around the arctic.

Beluga Whale

Beluga Whale

Beluga whales are only found in the arctic and sub-arctic oceans. They are one of just 2 species in their family Monodontidae, and are unique in their genus of Delphinapterus. It is also known as the white whale, the sea canary and the Melon-head (though the melon-headed dolphin is a species of its own, so this name may cause some confusion.

Adaptions it has for the Arctic, include the fact that it is white in colour, allowing it to blend into the white world more effectively, and the fact it has no dorsal fin, which allows it to swim very close to the ice sheet above.

Growing up to 5.5m in length and up to 1600kg they are a pretty large dolphin. Generally, living in groups of around 10, in the summer, they group together in their hundreds or thousands.

The worlds population is thought to be around 200,000, Some populations move from the edge of the ice cap, into rivers in warmer areas, while others stay around the ice caps year round. Groups of people in both USA and Russia have hunted them for many centuries.

Hunting is not controlled, and as such the drop in population could happen quite fast. Russia and Greenland have killed enough to drop their local population significantly, though thankfully not Alaska or Canada.

They do also have their natural predators in both the killer whale and the Polar bear.

They are the most commonly kept cetaceans in the world, with around 300 in captivity. Japan, USA, Ukraine, Canada, China and Russia as well as a few more.

There are 22 populations around the world, these vary from 39,000 down to as little as 500. The total population is around 200,000. While this number is large, the number hunted is definitely not sustainable. There is also no care to distinguish the different populations, which suggests that sub-populations could be pushed to extinction without any care.

Below, you will find a clip from a bbc documentary which features this species. Below this, is a list of any mentions that the beluga whale has had on this site. Below this, I will list any opportunities to see this species in the wild. Click on list your wild place, to list yours. It takes just a few minutes, and costs nothing – we only charge a commission on any business we send your way.

Bowhead whale

Bowhead whale

Also known as Greenland right whale, Arctic whale, steeple-top, and polar whale, they are closely related to the right whales, the bowhead whale looks quite different. It is in a different genus to the other right whales (so is a more distant relation.

The only whale that is endemic to the Arctic and sub-arctic, its mouth is a third of the size of the body. They are incredible long lived often living to 200 years old. They have incredibly thick skulls, which allows them to use their heads to break through the arctic ice.

Unfortunately, they were an early target of whalers, and so in 1966 hunting of them was banned. They have recovered to the point where out of the 5 subpopulations, 3 are endangered, one is vulnerable and the last one currently classed as low risk. Another unfortunate effect of whaling, was to put an end to the summer habits of the bowhead whale – before whaling, it appears that different whale populations would cross seas during the summer, and interbreed.

  1. The Western Arctic stock in the Bering, Chukchi, and Beaufort Seas estimated at 12,500 (though with 95% confidence range 8000-19500         
  2. The Hudson Bay and Foxe Basin stock estimated at 345 with a high confidence
  3. the Baffin Bay and Davis Strait stock which is estimated at over 1000 individuals
  4. the Sea of Okhotsk stock contains only 100-200
  5.  The Svalbard-Barents Sea stock was hunted to near extinction. As such while I cannot find a number, it is unlikely to have a large population

Polar Bear

Polar bear

  • A relatively new species of bear, the polar bear is the only species adapted for polar life. Still being found all around the Arctic, there are roughly 26,000 in the wild at the current time. Whalers and for traders killed many in the 19th century, and while they have recovered experts predict that global warming is likely to lead to the extinction of the polar bear.

Polar bears are distant cousins of the Grizzly bear, and as the weather warms, polar bears are moving south and Grizzlies north. This has on at least one occasion created a so called “Pizzly”. We only know about this, because a hunter who paid to kill a polar bear accidentally shot the Pizzly. I have made it clear my lack of appreciation for the so called hunter – while I am ready to admit that in places the money is useful for conservation, I hope that with your help and this website, we might make it an irrelevance.

Found throughout the arctic, they can be seen in 

  • Alaska (USA) 4000-7000
  • Canada   16,000
  • Greenland 3500-4000
  • Norwegian islands, particularly Svalbard about 3000
  • Russia:22,000-31,000 (note, this adds up to far to many – indeed Russias population alone is above the world population, also some are shared between countries)

Over time we hope to list many places where you can visit bears and see them in their wild home, these will appear here, and a list of posts we have published on bears will appear below these links

Arctic fox

Arctic fox

The Arctic fox is a white fox which lives throughout the Arctic region, and is common throughout the Arctic biome. Other names include white fox, polar fox or snow fox.

It is a similar size to other foxes, although generally more rounded, so as to loose as little weight as possible.

The Arctic fox preys on many small creatures such as lemmings, voles, ringed seal pups, fish, waterfowl, and seabirds. It also eats carrion, berries, seaweed, and insects and other small invertebrates.

Natural predators of the Arctic fox are golden eagles, Arctic wolves, polar bears, wolverines, red foxes, and grizzly bears. Having said this, they are also keen scavengers and seem to get alarmingly close to these animals on relatively regular occasions. in places where they occur, rodents such as lemmings can form a large part of an arctic fox families diet. In areas where their range overlaps with red foxes, they often build bigger dens with more exits, so as to be able to escape. One of the issues with reduced snow cover, is the fact that red foxes can seize range formerly used by Arctic foxes.

During much of the year, there is as much as a 90-100 degree difference between the internal temperature of the fox and the air temperature. When inactive, they will curl up into a ball, tucking in all extremities to preserve heat as much as possible.

Primarily monogamous, a pair of arctic foxes are required in order to raise their cubs. In areas where predation is higher, arctic foxes change their behaviour. Here they are often far more promiscuous, possibly so that there are more adults who think the young is theirs and therefore more help for protection, should one of the true parents get killed.

They are the only fox with fur on their feet, so as to avoid even more heat loss. It appears to have originated out of foxes from the Tibetan Plateau.

There are 4 recognized subspecies (beyond the common one)

     

      • Bering Islands Arctic fox, V. l. beringensis

      • Iceland Arctic fox, V. l. fuliginosus

      • Pribilof Islands Arctic fox, V. l. pribilofensis

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    Unknown, seemingly impossible Polar bear population found living in Greenland

    2200 polar bears live on the west coast of Greenland. It is unknown how many live on the east coast, but this group appears to be living in a place where they were formerly thought incapable of surviving.

    Polar bears appear to be surviving in a place where there is only broken ice to hunt from
    Continue reading “Unknown, seemingly impossible Polar bear population found living in Greenland”
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