Climate Change is Affecting The Arctic Like Never Before
With rising global temperatures, the Arctic is melting, causing widespread damage to polar habitats and increasing sea levels
For us humans, who live in tropical or temperate climates, the Arctic regions are an intriguing fantasy. But to those who live in these regions, it is their unique ecosystem that their bodies are made to live in. Climate change in the Arctic is a debilitating reality, not a mere debate or social cause. It is an alarming issue that actively impacts them every day.
The receding ice due to climate change can potentially wipe out arctic wildlife ecosystems, as the decline in the ice thickness is causing ice-dependent animals like polar bears and walruses to potentially face starvation and reproductive failure. As climate change alters these animals’ breeding grounds, habitat, and migration routes, it can put pressure on these species and potentially drive them to extinction.
A variety of species are also projected to shift, causing an advent of new species into the Arctic, thereby limiting the present species. Not only animals, but even human communities in the Arctic are having their nutritional needs impacted by the increase in global warming, as changes in precipitation and snow cover affect the availability of their staple foods like berries, whales, and seabirds. Why is this so concerning? Because in many Arctic regions, it is not a feasible or affordable option to obtain substitutes for staple foods. Along with this, the previously mentioned advent of newer arctic species poses health risks for animal diseases that can be contracted by humans like the West Nile virus.
Our planet is interconnected, and as Howard Epstein, the University of Virginia scientist put it, what happens in the Arctic does not stay in the Arctic. The lowered ice levels have effectively increased flood risks all over the world, as seen in coastal cities like London, New York, Miami, and Sydney.
It is also quite probable that as sea ice continues to recede, oceanic access to the Arctic’s natural resources will grow and the navigation season will prolong. On the surface, increased ice movement in several Northwest Passage channels may make shipping more challenging. As sea access grows, questions about sovereignty, security, and safety as well as social, cultural, and environmental issues are expected to surface.
Along with this, the Arctic’s role as the earth’s air-conditioner is declining as the more sea ice reduces, the more the ocean and sea are exposed to the world, and as the water cycle works its charm, the ocean absorbs sunlight, unlike the ice which reflects it, and hence more global warming is promoted, which repeats the process. This way, we have caused nature to, in a way, work against itself, all for industrialization and more resources. But at the cost of what? Starvation and endangered species? Destabilising livelihoods?
To summarise, climate change is predicted to pick up speed over the next 100 years, bringing with it significant physical, ecological, social, and economic changes — many of which have already started. Climate change has had a chain reaction over every aspect of the Arctic ecosystem, its animals, food, shelter, and economy. This chain reaction is now affecting other countries’ ecosystems too, demanding urgent action before matters become worse. It’s only a matter of time before we see Arctic species go extinct and our most important cities go underwater, threatening our own extinction.
