Chasing Ice is a documentary on climate change, the rise of CO2 gases and seeing what effect these two factors have on glaciers. Climate change is a incredibly serious problem because it kills off special species that the world needs in which humans are causing this problem. A photographer decided he wanted to try and capture life’s changing images of many glaciers to determine what effect climate change truly had on the world. He traveled to Greenland, Alaska, Montana, and Iceland and sets up cameras to grasp what effect climate change had on these glaciers. In a six month period, James, the photographer, captured that glaciers were not just shifting a couple of feet, however they were moving miles and miles from the current location. Climate
University of Colorado, Boulder, August 11, 2003, NASA funds Colorado University at Boulder study of changes in Earth’s glacier systems in Ascribe Science News Service: pNa, p 1.
In the essay, “Global Warming is Eroding Glacial Ice,” Andrew C. Revkin argues that global warming is the primary cause for many of the world’s natural disasters; including flash floods, climate change, and the melting of the polar ice caps. He includes multiple accounts of expert testimony as well as a multitude amount of facts and statistics to support his theory that global warming is a threat to the world. However, in the essay “Cold Comfort for ‘Global Warming’,” Phillip Stott makes the complete opposite argument. He argues that global warming is nothing to be worried about and the melting of the polar icecaps is caused by the interglacial period we are currently in. After reading both of these essays and doing extensive research on both viewpoints, I completely agree with Revkin that global warming is an enormous threat to our world today. My research not only helped me to take a stand but it also showed me the invalidity in Stott’s essay.
The environment has become a popular topic this year due to our on-going drought. It has always been a serious issue; something Saukko informs us in her sarcastic essay “How to Poison the Earth”. She uses sarcasm and irony in her essay hoping her readers will do the complete opposite of what she is saying because of the stress she puts on the harming chemicals we use every day. We do not appreciate our environment and take it for granted. This ideal is what Ehrlich's essay “Chronicles of Ice” focuses on by using analogies and scientific definitions to describe aspects of glaciers. The melting of the glaciers introduces us to the topic of global warming and how our society is doing nothing to stop it from getting worse. Gawande’s “The Cancer-Cluster
It is an unquestioned fact that the climate is changing. There is abundant evidence that the world is becoming warmer and warmer. The temperature of the global land average temperature has increased by about 8.5 degrees centigrade from 1880 to 2012 (Karr, et al 406). The one or two degrees increase in temperature can cause dramatic and serious consequences to the earth as well as humans. More extreme weather occurs, such as heat waves and droughts. The Arctic Region is especially sensitive to global climate change. According to the data in recent decades, the temperature in the Arctic has increased by more than 2 degrees centigrade in the recent half century (Przybylak 316). Climate change has led to a series of environmental and ecological negative
The fiction story “The Icebound Land” by John Flanagan, it follows two characters, Halt and Will. Will, an ranger aprentice, tries to escape from his captivity of the Skandians with Evanlyn, the princess of Arulean. Halt acomponies Horace to find and save Will from getting traded away. The theme of this story is to save someone important to you at all cost.
It is predicted that the effect of permafrost melting will be that the ocean levels will rise and will significantly increase the temperature and accelerate the rate at which global warming occurs. Permafrost covers 24% of the land in the Northern Hemisphere (Insert Citation), if this was to melt 1700 gigatonnes of methane and carbon dioxide (Insert Citation), powerful heat trapping gases, would be released into the atmosphere increasing the amount of greenhouse gases by 200%.
Glaciers have drastically changed over time because on average, “glaciers worldwide have been losing mass since at least the 1970s”. The melting of glaciers has been contributing to the rise in sea level because the glaciers have been shrinking faster in the last decade. Three of the major glaciers in the us have shown an overall drop in mass since the 1950s and 1960s and an accelerated rate of decline in recent years. An ice cap covered Mt. Hood during the Ice Age, from about 1.8 million years ago to about 10,000 years ago. These ice caps covered the Oregon Cascades, a series of mountains in Oregon, with glaciers going down on the east and west sides of the range. These glaciers melted into smaller glaciers as the weather proceeded to get warmer...
People are responsible for higher carbon dioxide atmosphere emissions, while the Earth is now into the Little Ice Age, or just behind it. These factors together cause many years discussions of the main sources of climate changes and the temperature increasing as a result of human been or natural changes and its consequences; even if its lead to the global warming, or to the Earth’s cooling. In their articles, “Global Warming Is Eroding Glacial Ice” by Andrew C. Revkin and “Global Warming Is Not a Threat to Polar Ice” by Philip Stott, both authors discuss these two theories (Revkin 340; Stott 344). Revkin is right that global warming is taking place. Significant increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is due to human activities combined with natural factors such as volcanic emissions and solar radiation – all together they lead to climate changes and temperatures rising. At the same time, other factors such as deforestation contribute to environmental changes for some glaciers not less than air pollution. However, during global warming not all regions of the planet are affected in the same way, local warming and cooling are both possible during these changes.
The glaciers have been through a minimum of four glacial periods. They’ve been through the Little Ice age, which commenced around 4,000 years ago. Marks of retreating glacier ice are seen in the rock-strewn and sculpted peaks valleys. The land and bodies of water that the retreating ice has created a new display of animal and plant communities. Ice fields, expansive river and stream systems, and tidewater glaciers significantly determine the likelihood of animals and plants to
The Little Ice Age was a period of time in which parts of Europe and North America were exposed to colder winters than those generations before and after. This phase lasted a surprisingly long time from around the 1300’s to about 1870. Although it is not considered to be a full on “ice age”, it is said to have many effects on history including important roles on defining how we currently live today.
The article “Bigger, Faster Avalanches, Triggered by Climate Change” shows the unusual behaving of the glaciers in the Tibet. Glaciers move very slow over time. However, In the Tibet, snow and ice collapsed of the glaciers move in very fast speed in short time. The speed may reach 200 miles per an hour. Scientists are surprised by how they move in a such fast speed, and they believe this crisis is caused by the global warming. As we produce more heat on the Earth, more collapses of the snow happen, which lead to global warming. The collapses may impact both animal and human lives. I think we will have the climate change for a long time. If we do not want to deal with the original problem, which is greenhouse gases emission, we should handle
In the past thirty-five years climate change has been a dilemma around the world, Earth’s surfaces temperatures are at an all-time high and continue to rise, thus triggering us to endure more problems further down the line. Due to the rise in earths temperatures sea ice in the arctic has thinned out and melted over the last several decades, since 1870 seal levels have risen by eight inches due to this crisis. Arctic sea ice is essential to the environment, it forms and grows white ice on top of the ocean reflecting the sun back to space. Polar regions depend on sea ice to keep cool throughout the year, it helps moderates global climate, and it influences the ocean circulation (Song 2012, 4074). Sea ice is vital for animal habitats in the Arctic,
Although most glaciers and ice sheets reside in areas that man does not inhabit, they are nevertheless important for society and the global environment. Due to anthropogenic activities over the past two centuries, the temperature of the earth is rising at an alarming rate. This rise in temperatures has resulted in an overall loss of ice mass worldwide, including a rapid depletion in mountain glaciers. The effects of glacial melt will have a significant impact on the future of the human race, so it is therefore important to have a firm understanding of glaciers.
The polar regions are most affected and vulnerable to the warming temperatures because the poles are covered in ice. The world’s ice sheets are melting faster than ever and temperatures in the Arctic region are rising twice as fast as anywhere else on Earth according to the NRDC. This will have a serious impact on people, wildlife and plants in that region. The National Climate Assessment has said that “By the year 2100, it 's estimated our oceans will be one to four feet higher, threatening coastal systems and low-lying areas, including entire island nations and the world 's largest cities, including New York, Los Angeles, and Miami as well as Mumbai, Sydney, and Rio de Janeiro”. Polar bears are in great threat as the ice sheets melt because they use the ice to travel across the land and hunt. As the sea-ice platforms move further apart, the swimming conditions become more dangerous. The U.S Geological Survey done by the National Wildlife Federation predicts that by the year 2050, two thirds of all polar bears will disappear. Researcher Bill Fraser has tracked the Adelie penguins in Antarctica and reported the numbers have fallen from 32,000 to only 11,000 over the last 30
Glaciers have disappeared due to increasing in global temperatures because of which the water level had drastically increased and its causing flood all over the world