Wildlife and conservation new, wild travel information and links for booking
This enormous temperature jump could have huge impacts. On 18th March 2022 scientist at Concordia research station on the east side of Antarctica. To put this leap in perspective, that would take a normal spring day in the UK, up to some of the highest temperatures ever recorded on planet earth.
Continue reading “World record temperature jump recorded in Antarctica 38.5”
The Ross ice shelf is vast, covering 182,000 square miles, it is only slightly smaller than France, and yet a study has shown, that the whole ice shelf can move 40 cm in just 10 minutes. These were generally caused by slips in the Whillans Ice Sheet, which is one of just a few ice flows into and through the area.
The whole shelf was found to move 6-8cm once or twice a day, triggered by these flows moving. This could be the cause of both icequakes, and fractures running through the ice (fractures are important, as they make it more likely that a section of the ice will break off the edge of Antarctica and head into the ocean. While this ice can, on occasion survive a long time – A23a broke of Antarctica in 1986 and has been floating free for much of the time since (except for a decade or so when it grounded); it was estimated to be 400m thick and weigh in at nearly 1 trillion tonnes.
This is a problem for a simple reason. Unlike the north pole, there is land under the ice in Antarctica. This means that while in the north pole, the ice sheet is already in the sea, so its melting cannot increase sea level, Antarctic ice all does increase sea levels.
The Ross ice shelf is known to have collapsed 120,000 years ago during the last interglacial period, and contains enough ice to raise sea levels by 11.5m (this would also cause another 2m of sea level rise because of the glaciers which would no longer be held back).
A Dutch startup, is trialling mitigating this in the Arctic, by pumping sea water onto the ice. This then freezes, thickening the ice. It is possible that this might work in the short term, however, what is clear, is that the only long-term solution, is to stop burning fossil fuels, so as to halt the heating of the earths climate.
The beaked whale species are a family of rarely seen whales. Despite there being 22 species of beaked whale (which we know about) they are rarely seen, and some have only been described in recent years.
Why are they seen so rarely? because they have a record breaking ability to hold their breath being able to hold it for over an hour (reasonably regularly) and have been recorded in dives lasting over 100 minutes. After sightings of this species, the researchers did a search and analysis of sightings between 1980 and 2000. Just 108 sightings were made, accounting for 1125 individuals.
Continue reading “A rare whale species observed on Antarctic expedition”
So, if the melting of this ice sheet is now unaviodable what would its impacts be? Well this ice sheet has enough volume of water, to raise global water levels by 5m. While this might not sound like much, there are 16 countries around the world who would loose more than 10% of their area, and the country at the top – the Netherlands, would loose roughly 55% of its landmass. It is estimated that by 2030 5.4% of the worlds population or 460 million people will live in this zone that will cease to exist.
Unfortunately, there is little positive to write, as the author suggests that this is now inevitable. Drastic cutting now, is all that can stop this damage at 5m raise in sea levels. Without it, what are we going to see? 100m rise in sea levels? This would require us finding space for 1/3 or the human population, on the remaining land, as their land will disappear beneath the seas.
Why is this not considered a major disaster?
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.Â
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.Â
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.
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.
The fin whale which is also known as finback whale or common rorqual and formerly known as herring whale or razorback whale, is the second longest species of whale, with the largest species growing to a reported 27m, and weighing a maximum recorded weight of 74 tonnes, and a maximum estimated weight of 114 tonnes.
It is a fast swimmer, able to outpace the fastest steamships.
There are 2 recognized subspecies, in the northern and southern hemisphere. Around 725,000 southern fin whales were taken during whaling, and there are around 38,000 that roam the oceans as of 1997. Across the world around 112,000 roam the oceans.
Although the genetic differences between the fin whale and the blue whale are considered similar to that of humans and gorillas (they are thought to have been split for 3.5 million years) and hybrids have been recorded from time to time.
Average dives are around 6 minutes, with the longest dives recorded being around 17 minutes.
Found around the world, though not found close to the polar ice caps at either end of the globe. They appear to be clearly migratory, but it has not been possible to fully work out what this migration pattern might be.
Â
Â
As with humans, great Apes and bears amongst others it has been found the dolphins will usually prefer to use one flipper rather than the other.
It...
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.
A group of polar bears are surviving in south-east Greenland are surviving despite there not being sea ice for most of the year.
Having drilled 900m through the ice this team of scientists found something incredible. Despite no light making its way through the ice, they found a boulder surrounded by sponges as well as 22 other species (including barnacles). Immobile life has not been found below the Antarctic ice before.
Continue reading “Life has been discovered living beneath the Antarctic ice sheet”
Join as an ambassador supporter to
support this site, help save wildlife
and make friends & log in
