Sentences with phrase «ice habitat for»

Sea ice habitat for polar bears has not become progressively worse each year during their season of critical feeding and mating, as some scaremongers often imply.

Franz Josef Land provides the most stable sea ice habitat for Barents Sea polar bears because it is largely beyond the influence of warm water influxes from the North Atlantic.

That corresponds to a roughly 3 1/2 week shift at either end — and seven weeks of total loss of good sea ice habitat for polar bears — over the 35 years of Arctic sea ice data.

Not exact matches

«These spring and fall transitions bound the period when there is good ice habitat available for bears to feed,» Laidre said.

Now, researchers have exposed a more accessible analog for extraterrestrial life habitats: microscopic pockets of salt water in the Arctic Ocean's winter ice.

Rising temperatures have reduced the area's sea ice cover, which serves as an important habitat not just for Adelie penguins but also for krill.

More than half a kilometre beneath the Devon Ice Cap, scientists discovered two lakes whose extreme saltiness could make them a habitat for microbes — an environment that might also exist on Jupiter's icy moon Europa.

«Scientists discover first super salty subglacial lakes in Canadian Arctic: Super salty water beneath ice could serve as a terrestrial analogue for a habitat for life on other planets.»

Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, however, made clear several times during a press conference announcing the department's decision that, despite his acknowledgement that the polar bear's sea ice habitat is melting due to global warming, the ESA will not be used as a tool for trying to regulate the greenhouse gas emissions blamed for creating climate change.

«Prior to the last Ice Age, there was a clear distinction in the isotope values for all three species; after this period, there is a clear overlap — and this suggests that the habitat of deer species had shrunk or there was and overlap in the diets of the different deer species,» says Dorothée Drucker from the Biogeology department, who examined the collagen.

Neanderthals, with whom we shared the planet until just before the last glacial maximum, 20,000 years ago, may have struggled to survive as the rising and falling ice ate away at their habitat — although many other explanations for their extinction have been suggested.

The decision was based on evidence that sea ice is vital for polar bear survival, that this sea ice habitat has been reduced, and that this process is likely to continue; if something is not done to change this situation, the polar bear will be extinct within 45 years, Kempthorne said.

Unlike other liquids which contract when they are cooled, water expands below four degrees C. so ice is less dense and floats on top of liquid water — acting an insulating layer and providing a favorable habitat for life below.

IT WILL be little consolation to hungry polar bears in northern Manitoba, Canada, who have had to wait weeks longer than usual for sea ice to form on Hudson Bay, but their habitat is not irreversibly doomed.

«NASA backed us on research related to the biodiversity and ecology of Arctic marine mammals, as well as the development of metrics for the loss of sea ice, their habitat.»

Sea ice is a crucial part of the ecosystems at both poles, providing habitat and influencing food availability for penguins, polar bears and other native species.

«Ice - free areas make for small patches of suitable habitat for plants and animals — like islands in a sea of ice,» she saIce - free areas make for small patches of suitable habitat for plants and animals — like islands in a sea of ice,» she saice,» she said.

If it reaches the ocean, he says, it could impact the North Water Polynya, an ice - free area off the island's northwest coast that provides important year - round habitat for marine mammals and birds.

Aside from changes in how belugas dove for food, the nearly two decades of data show that the whales were able to thrive in their summer and fall ocean habitats, despite less ice cover.

«We have documented loss of sea ice and reductions of habitat for Arctic marine mammals across most of the circumpolar Arctic, so this area is not unique,» said co-author Kristin Laidre, a UW associate professor in the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences and the Polar Science Center.

Aquifers below the ice would provide a habitat for creatures or a venue for the hydrogeochemical production of methane.

Recruitment is related to the winter sea ice cover from the previous year, as diminished sea ice cover reduces habitat available for over-wintering juvenile and adult krill and reduces the size of the food - rich marginal sea ice zone in summer.

The Arctic Ocean's sea ice and waters are habitat for many imperiled species, from polar bears to bowhead whales — and they all face the threat of dirty fossil - fuel development.

Sea ice also provides crucial coastal protection in the Arctic, hunting grounds for local tribes, and habitats for creatures from polar bears to seals.

For example, fast ice provides a critical habitat for emperor penguins, yet this remains difficult to distinguish from pack ice at a regional and global scaFor example, fast ice provides a critical habitat for emperor penguins, yet this remains difficult to distinguish from pack ice at a regional and global scafor emperor penguins, yet this remains difficult to distinguish from pack ice at a regional and global scale.

These magnificent animals are facing unprecedented threats as a warming climate and loss of their sea ice habitat make it more difficult for the bears to hunt prey like seals and find dens for their cubs.

Often photographed clinging to Arctic ice floes as its habitat melts away into warming waters, the polar bear is the poster child for U.S. efforts to save wildlife on the brink of extinction using the Endangered Species Act.

The ice business hasn't operated here since 1907, but the area remains an important habitat for beavers and the like.

It is pushing for new oil and gas drilling in polar bear habitat while biologists for Interior Department, prodded by legal action, recommended the bear be given threatened status under the species act because of the warming of the Arctic and summer retreat of sea ice.

... Sea ice, especially during the sunlit seasons, serves as habitat for an ice - specific food web (sympagic foodweb)[1] that includes bacteria, viruses, unicellular algae, which often form chains and filaments, and invertebrates sufficiently small to traverse the brine network.

Because polar bears are entirely dependent upon the sea ice for their survival, any observed and projected reductions in preferred sea ice habitats can only result in declines.

Extent, for once, is crucial in determining the amount of absorbed solar radiation, the area of polar bear (and other animals») habitat, the amount of snow that falls onto sea ice, etc..

Sea ice is critical for polar marine ecosystems in at least two important ways: (1) it provides a habitat for photosynthetic algae and nursery ground for invertebrates and fish during times when the water column does not support phytoplankton growth; and (2) as the ice melts, releasing organisms into the surface water [3], a shallow mixed layer forms which fosters large ice - edge blooms important to the overall productivity of polar seas.

And in fact, the bottom of the sea ice is habitat for more organisms than you might think, and maybe more than anyone yet knows.

Its coasts provide refuge for Pacific walruses and ice seals and designated critical habitat for threatened polar bears.

Shaye Wolf, climate science director for the Center for Biological Diversity, the conservation group that launched legal action to get Pacific walruses listed in 2008, told Earther that the agency's claim that walruses will adapt to climate change «is baseless, and simply doesn't match the science showing that walruses are being harmed by the devastating loss of their sea ice habitat.»

After all, the computer models used to predict a dire future for polar bears combined the Chukchi Sea with the Southern Beaufort, as having similar ice habitats («ice ecoregions»).

Climate warming is reducing the availability of their ice habitat, especially in the spring when polar bears gain most of their annual fat reserves by consuming seal pups before coming ashore for the summer.

The average historic summer minimum (the yellow line in Fig. 1) indicates large portions of the Chukchi Sea's foraging habitat have been covered with summer ice concentrations of 50 % and greater for much of the 20th century.

A new paper that combines paleoclimatology data for the last 56 million years with molecular genetic evidence concludes there were no biological extinctions [of Arctic marine animals] over the last 1.5 M years despite profound Arctic sea ice changes that included ice - free summers: polar bears, seals, walrus and other species successfully adapted to habitat changes that exceeded those predicted by USGS and US Fish and Wildlife polar bear biologists over the next 100 years.

Globally, the ice is spitting - distance close to the 1981 - 2010 average calculated by the NSIDC for this date — which means lots of winter / spring hunting habitat for polar bears.»

This is devastating news for polar bears, who are suffering as their sea - ice habitat melts from under their paws.

Today, I'll take a look at sea ice and ringed seal habitat in the Gulf of Boothia and M'Clintock Channel, as well as information from a study on polar bear diets, which together shine some light on why the Gulf of Boothia is such a great place for polar bears.

Thus, during the optimal season for whelping, 99 % of their foraging habitat is covered by ice concentrations greater than 15 % and as high as 100 %.

To make the case bearded seals were threatened, the BRT argued sea ice is a critical habitat required for birthing, nursing, molting and for resting while over prime foraging habitat.

The eastern Barents Sea (located in Russian territory), as defined by the Polar Bear Specialist Group (see map below), provides ample habitat for polar bears to thrive despite extended fluctuations in seasonal sea ice cover in the western portion.

Bottom line: Barents Sea polar bears are loyal to this region because the eastern portion has the habitat they require to thrive even when sea ice cover in the western portion essentially disappears for thousands of years at a time.

«Loss of habitat directly impacts polar bears, seals and walruses, which use the ice for foraging, reproduction and resting, and for also for people who use ice for hunting, travel and other activities.»

In contrast, sea ice is also an important habitat for juvenile Antarctic krill, providing food and protection from predators.

It may also mean more habitat for dark microbes, which can contribute to the darkening of the ice sheets and therefore to the melting.