Arctic climate's last bastion succumbing to global warming, researchers say
Source: The Globe and Mail
One of the last refuges from the effects of global warming in Canada’s Arctic is succumbing to rising temperatures, creating significant risks for polar bears and the people who must survive off a rapidly transforming landscape.
A team of five researchers from Queen’s University, Laurentian University and the Ontario Ministry of the Environment has looked at algae deposits in lake sediments in the Hudson Bay Lowlands over the past 70 years and determined that, since the mid-1990s, the area has warmed dramatically.
In a paper released Tuesday, they say their research provides evidence “that we are witnessing the transformation of the Arctic at an exceptional pace.”
... John Smol, a paleolimnologist at Queen’s who was one of the authors of the new study of the Hudson Bay Lowlands, has been working in the Arctic for 30 years. ... “We all know that the Arctic is the miner’s canary of the planet,” Dr. Smol said. “It is the first to show signs of environmental change, and to the greatest degree. Soon we won’t have to say almost all areas of the Arctic have been warming because, here, one of the last big refugia seems to have succumbed.”
Read more: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/arctic-climates-last-bastion-succumbing-to-global-warming-researchers-say/article14753727/
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