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Polar bears could vanish by the end of the century, scientists predict - Livescience.com
Oct 14, 2021 1 min, 46 secs

The dramatic disappearance of summer Arctic ice will have a lasting impact.

Arctic sea ice has been steadily decreasing since the beginning of satellite records in 1979, but a new study comes with a chilling (or perhaps, warming) prediction: By the end of this century, Arctic sea ice may disappear during the summer, which could drive polar bears and other ice-dependent species to extinction.

In the most pessimistic scenario, in which emissions continue at their current rate of increase, the summer ice — and the polar bears and seals that live on it — could disappear by 2100, researchers reported in a new study. .

"Ringed seals and polar bears, for example, have relied on their dens in the ridged and corrugated sea-ice surface to stay approximately in one place," the researchers wrote. .

Because they are specialized predators, polar bears (Ursus maritimus) would be especially vulnerable to extinction if the ice were to disappear.

Adapted to lurk atop sea ice, the Arctic bears hunt by snatching unfortunate seals that come to the surface to breathe.

Polar bears have jaws adapted for consuming soft blubber and meat; and though the bears have been seen shifting their diet to seabird eggs and caribou while on land, a 2015 study published in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment found that the calories they gain from these sources do not balance out those the bears burn from foraging for these animals, Live Science previously reported. .

This rapid habitat shift could cause polar bears to become extinct or lead to more extensive interbreeding with grizzly bears (Ursus arctos horribilis), whose ranges are expanding northward as the climate warms, Live Science previously reported.

Nonetheless, in the more pessimistic, increasing-emission scenario, the researchers expect the summer ice and the ice-dependent ecosystem to disappear.

9, a landmark report from the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a stark warning that Earth is expected to reach a critical threshold: a global temperature increase of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) due to climate change within the next 20 years.

He covers physics and astronomy, among other topics like weird animals and climate change

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