Sea Ice - Relationship To Global Warming and Climate Change

Relationship To Global Warming and Climate Change

Sea ice provides an ecosystem for various polar species, particularly the polar bear, whose environment is being threatened as global warming causes the ice to melt a bit more as the Earth’s temperature gets warmer. Furthermore, the sea ice itself functions to help keep polar climates cool, since the ice exists in expansive enough amounts to maintain a cold environment. At this, sea ice’s relationship with global warming is cyclical; the ice helps to maintain cool climates, but as the global temperature increases, the ice melts, and is less effective in keeping those climates cold. The bright, shiny surface of the ice also serves a role in maintaining cooler polar temperatures by reflecting much of the sunlight that hits it back into space. As the sea ice melts, its surface area shrinks, diminishing the size of the reflective surface and therefore causing the earth to absorb more of the sun’s heat. Though the size of the ice floes is affected by the seasons, even a small change in global temperature can greatly affect the amount of sea ice, and due to the shrinking reflective surface that keeps the ocean cool, this sparks a cycle of ice shrinking and temperatures warming. As a result, the polar regions are the most susceptible places to climate change on the planet.

Furthermore, sea ice affects the movement of ocean waters. In the freezing process, much of the salt in ocean water is squeezed out of the frozen crystal formations, though some remains frozen in the ice. This salt becomes trapped beneath the sea ice, creating a higher concentration of salt in the water beneath ice floes. This concentration of salt contributes to the salinated water’s density, and this cold, denser water sinks to the bottom of the ocean. This cold water moves along the ocean floor towards the equator, while warmer water on the ocean surface moves in the direction of the poles. This is referred to as “conveyor belt motion”, and is regularly occurring process.

Read more about this topic:  Sea Ice

Famous quotes containing the words relationship, global, warming, climate and/or change:

    There is a relationship between cartooning and people like Miró and Picasso which may not be understood by the cartoonist, but it definitely is related even in the early Disney.
    Roy Lichtenstein (b. 1923)

    As the global expansion of Indian and Chinese restaurants suggests, xenophobia is directed against foreign people, not foreign cultural imports.
    Eric J. Hobsbawm (b. 1917)

    Under that wide hearth
    a nest of rattlers,
    they’ll knot a hundred together,
    had wintered and were coming awake.
    The warming rock
    flushed them out early.
    Robert Morgan (b. 1944)

    When we consider how much climate contributes to the happiness of our condition, by the fine sensation it excites, and the productions it is the parent of, we have reason to value highly the accident of birth in such a one as that of Virginia.
    Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)

    What is a firm hand to me, of what use to me is this astonishing power if I cannot change the order of things, if I cannot make the sun set in the east, that suffering diminish and that beings no longer die?
    Albert Camus (1913–1960)