How Vulnerable Are The Ice Poles ?

Influenced by global warming and environmental pollution, the earth's ice polar caps; both the Arctic and the Antarctic show disproportionate melts, a fact that could be exaggerated in the next decades.

Deep roles of polar ice in environmental stability have been discovered, influencing ocean circulation and climate. Its action and natural cycle are altered with global warming, a phenomenon that has increased in the 20th century.

Image 1: An arctic fox rest in the polar snow.

At the ice poles, the temperature changes throughout the year. In summer, the north pole is at about -32 ° F, while the south pole is at -18 ° F; in winter, the north pole drops to -40 ° F and the south pole to -76 ° F. 

Made up mostly of water, the polar ice melts at temperatures above -32 ° F, causing a thaw as the water becomes liquid; as a consequence, there is a loss of thickness on its shelf, which can cause it to collapse. Polar bears (Image 2), unique to the Arctic regions, are severely affected by ice melting and the risks caused in their natural habitat.

Sea level and global environmental stability depend on these large ice masses; the vulnerability of the poles revolves around the evolution of the environment on the passage of time, so it is necessary to carry out a historical retrospective to determine the behavior of the ice with environmental, technological, social and geopolitical conditions. 

Image 2: Polar bears suffer permanent threats.

A frame that gets worse

The Little Ice Age was a period from approximately 1550 to 1850. After this last year, a relatively slow gradual increase in temperature began until 1940, when glaciers around the world began to recede substantially as the climate warmed significantly until current conditions are obtained.

According to NASA, the biggest problem occurs during the cold seasons of the Arctic. In 2020, a new historical peak of maximum temperature was recorded, marking temperatures up to 10 ° C warmer than normal. In 2019, in the vicinity of the Arctic, Greenland lost 600 billion tons of ice in just two months; this northern zone, which contains enough frozen water to raise the global sea level by 24 feet, has entered a period of rapid decline

The East Antarctic Ice Sheet contains 80 percent of the Greenland ice, which is primarily exposed to hot air currents; while West Antarctica is highly exposed to warm ocean currents as it lies in a wide bowl that plunges below sea level, only the Wilkes Basin in eastern Antarctica can raise sea level 10 to 13 feet.

Other regions and mid-latitudes of the Earth have also reported consequences caused by climate change in the year 2020. Western Europe was wetter and very stormy, with Storm Alex sweeping across the region, causing destruction, flooding, and claiming lives in France, Italy, Austria, Poland, and the Czech Republic.

Since the temperature is not constant, and it changes from one place to another. It has been revealed that more than 20% of all humans have experienced a warming of more than 1.5 degrees Celsius in at least one season. 

These risks are greatest at lower latitudes for disadvantaged individuals and communities. Over the years, a marked thaw has been noticed throughout the world, in Image 2, a comparison of the same glacier is made between the years 1953 and 2019., it is noted that in recent years the decrease in the snow cover is astonishing

Image 2: Comparison of the same glacier 66 years later.

Causes and implications

The rising temperature of the Earth has been responsible for melting glaciers, this raises temperatures and sea levels. Today, the speed is tremendous due to environmental pollution, deforestation, and burning fossil fuels, amongst other human activities.

This implies ocean warming, due to Arctic ice loss, the dependent species like polar bears and seals face a huge risk as the climatic change will make the Arctic an unsuitable habitat for them, also has affected marine lives and other lifeforms. 

People living near the Arctic could be forced to relocate due to increasing temperatures and wildfires. Sea level rise, glacial melting has contributed to rising sea levels by 2.7 centimeters since 1961; the disappearance of glaciers also means less water available worldwide.

On the other hand, land and ocean temperatures are reported to have risen at an average rate of 0.13 degrees Fahrenheit (0.08 ° C) per decade since 1880, although higher values are reported in some specific years later. The University of Zurich, in 2019, revealed that glacial melting is 30% of the current rate of ocean growth, see Image 3.

Image 3: Environmental warming forms meltwater on the glacier's surface.

So what?

It is in our hands to propose and develop alternatives to enhance environmental initiatives to achieve the change.

There is a great need to stop climate change and save glaciers, for this it is necessary to reduce emissions of environmental pollutants. Some alternatives for saving glaciers have been proposed around the world: combine artificial icebergs of melted glacier water, desalinate it and freeze it again, you have to think about the amount of energy that this may require; another alternative would be to strengthen the consistency of existing glaciers, increasing their thickness.

Some natural phenomena have the ability to reduce the heat of the planet; for example, the volcanic eruption of Ilopango managed to inject reflective drops of sulfuric acid into the stratosphere, which protected the earth from warming and promoted a global cooling of approximately 2 degrees Celsius that lasted 20 years. In 1991 the Pinatubo eruption in the Philippines cooled the global climate by 0.6 degrees Celsius for 15 months, mechanisms like this could be an option for humanity.

Frozen poles and oceans are the biggest contributors to the dissipation of heat from the earth, we must preserve them to preserve life as we know it. We still have time to save the glaciers from their disappearance.

References

• Stibal, Marek & Sabacka, Marie & Zarsky, Jakub. (2012). Biological processes on glacier and ice sheet surfaces. Nature Geoscience. 5. 771-774. 10.1038/ngeo1611. 

• National Geographic. Madeleine Stone. Greenland could lose more ice this century than it has in 12,000 years. Published September 30, 2020. Link https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/greenland-could-lose-more-ice-this-century-than-it-has-in-12000-years.

• The times of India. Melting Poles: Unprecedented Arctic Heat Leads to Second Lowest Sea Ice Minimum this Year. TWC India Edit Team23 September, 2020 TWC India. IBM. Link https://weather.com/en-IN/india/environment/news/2020-09-23-unprecedented-arctic-heat-leads-second-lowest-sea-ice-minimum.

• National Geographic. Douglas Fox. Biggest ice sheet on Earth more vulnerable to melting than thought. Published july 22, 2020. Link https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/east-antarctic-ice-sheet-more-vulnerable-to-melting-than-thought.

• Washington post. Andrew Freedman. Unusual warmth pours over the North Pole, potentially jump-starting melt season for Arctic ice. May 14, 2020 at 8:00 a.m. GMT-5. Link https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/05/14/arctic-temperature-spike-sea-ice/.

• Martin, D. F., Cornford, S. L., & Payne, A. J. (2019). Millennial-scale vulnerability of the Antarctic Ice Sheet to regional ice shelf collapse. Geophysical Research Letters, 46, 1467– 1475. https://doi.org/10.1029/2018GL081229.

• NASA. A Degree of Concern: Why Global Temperatures Matter. Alan Buis. NASA's Global Climate Change Website. June 19, 2019. Link https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2865/a-degree-of-concern-why-global-temperatures-matter/.