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How Climate Change Affects the Arctic and its inhabitants

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How Climate Change Affects the Arctic and its inhabitants

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The arctic ecosystem is a very cold place where only. select few species of animals can survive. The environment consists of mostly ice and snow. Some species include fish, penguins, and seals. The penguins eat fish and so do seals.

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Home " Arctic: Frozen Ocean Introduction " Ecosystem

Arctic Ocean Ecosystem
Click on the animals below to learn more.

The Arctic ecosystem has a unique, complex food web that is fashioned by its distinctive plankton, animal species, and environmental factors. Carbon also cycles through the web from atmosphere to seawater and back. Phytoplankton and algae take up carbon dioxide from seawater and transform it into the organic carbon of their tissue. Then it flows through successive levels of eating animals that convert their prey's carbon into their own tissues or into sinking fecal pellets. Along the way, some carbon dioxide escapes back to the atmosphere through the organisms' respiration.

Abundance of Life in the Arctic

The polar bear is the world's largest land predator, and is found throughout the Arctic. Climate change is the main threat to polar bears today. A diminishing ice pack directly affects polar bears, as sea ice is the platform from which they hunt seals. Photo by Chris Linder, WHOI.

An adult walrus is huge and can weigh from 2000 to 3000 pounds. Their brownish skin is very thick and wrinkled. They have long sharp tusks and whiskers. The layers of blubber and thick skin protect the walrus from the cold wind as they lie out on the ice. Photo by Chris Linder, WHOI.

An Arctic jellyfish close to the surface. Photo by Chris Linder, WHOI.

A juvenile copeod compared to the tip of a pencil. Photo by Chris Linder, WHOI.

Capped with a formidable ice and snow cover, plunged into total darkness during the winter, buffeted by blizzard winds, and bitterly cold, the Arctic Ocean is one of the most inaccessible and yet beautiful environments on Earth. Life here endures some of the greatest extremes in light and temperature known to our planet. Yet despite these inhospitable conditions, the Arctic Ocean is teeming with life.

Great polar bears roam the Arctic ice and swim the Arctic seas. Supporting these top predators is a complex ecosystem that includes plankton, fish, birds, seals, walruses, and even whales. At the center of this food web, supporting all of this life, are phytoplankton and algae that produce organic material using energy from the sun.

The Arctic's extreme environmental conditions have limited our opportunities to study this complex food web. Expeditions to the remote Arctic are difficult and expensive. When we can get there at all, it is usually only in summer. Such gaps in our observations have compromised our ability to understand the food web's intricacies and vulnerabilities-at a time when the ecosystem appears to be increasingly vulnerable.

Scientists now know that warming temperatures are affecting the Arctic Ocean, producing changes that may have cascading effects on the Arctic's interlinked and delicately balanced food web. Changes in the food web not only threaten life in the Arctic region, they also could have impacts on Earth's climate. Populations of Arctic plankton for example, not only provide food at the base of the food web, they also convert carbon dioxide from the atmosphere into organic matter that eventually sinks to the ocean bottom-effectively extracting a heat-trapping greenhouse gas from the atmosphere.

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Most everyone knows that the Arctic is located at the top of the planet and home to the north pole. But did you know the average winter temperature is minus 30 degrees Fahrenheit, and during summer, the temperature can climb to plus 50 degrees? That the Arctic is the only place polar bears live?

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The ecosystem is being disrupted by global warming. Sea ice is melting giving the seals less land to live on and come up for air when they go in the water and hunt for fish and penguins. This huge change affects all species in the arctic ecosystem and is a huge problem.

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After long, dark winters, sunlight returns to the Bering Sea in spring, re-launching a bountiful food chain that fills the Arctic with life. In March 2008, an ambitious research team, led by biologist Carin Ashjian of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), launched into the Bering Sea to learn more about how its complex ecosystem works and how it may be affected by impending climate change.

As increasing sunlight penetrates the sea ice, ice algae grow on its underside. Rising temperatures begin to melt the ice, releasing the algae that drifts through the ocean and to the seafloor. The algae become food for planktonic copepods and krill and seafloor-dwelling urchins and mussels-lower links in the ocean food chain that feed fish, seabirds, whales, seals, walruses, polar bears, and humans at the top. Will Earth's changing climate, proceeding fastest in the vulnerable Arctic region, disrupt the choreography of this age-old ecosystem?

To find out, 46 researchers with various scientific expertise, from 18 universities, research institutions, and agencies, headed on a 39-day voyage on the U. S. Coast Guard Cutter Healy from March to May 2008 for a coordinated study of the marine ecosystem.

The research team sampled in nearly 200 locations across the Bering Sea using a variety of oceanographic tools to collect water, seafloor sediment, and plant and animal plankton, and to take video of plankton and of algae growing under the ice. Some researchers measured plankton growth and reproduction as spring progressed, tracking temperature and nutrient levels in the water that influence spring plankton growth. Other researchers observed seabirds. The Healy, an icebreaker, worked not only in open water, but near the retreating ice edge, and in areas of thick ice where researchers disembarked to take ice cores and used a small remotely operated vehicle to survey under the ice for ice algae.

This was the second of three Bering Sea cruises on Healy planned for 2008, part of a large six-year project from 2007 to 2012. The first cruise, in mid-to-late March, was near St. Lawrence Island, a large remote island in the north Bering Sea where scientists studied walrus and their food supply and collected seawater, sediment, and biological specimens.

During the second cruise, Ashjian flew by helicopter from the ship to St. Lawrence Island, where she met with native hunters in the village of Gambell and told them about the research project and its findings.

"The hunters are very aware of and interested in ongoing climate change in the Bering Sea," she said. "It was interesting hearing their insights into the changing of the seasons, how the ocean and ice are changing in recent years, and how this is impacting the distribution of the animals on which they depend for food-whales, seals, walrus, birds, and crabs."

The cruise yielded valuable information about the current state of the Bering Sea, Ashjian said, though it was an exceptionally icy spring that delayed the full phytoplankton bloom. Ashjian said scientists gained insights into the important role of sea ice and ice algae in the Arctic ecosystem.
The cruise was supported by a partnership of the National Science Foundation's Bering Sea Ecosystem (BEST) program and the North Pacific Research Board's Bering Sea Integrated Ecosystem Research Program (BSIERP).

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Will Climate Change Disrupt the Arctic Ecosystem?

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After long, dark winters, sunlight returns to the Bering Sea in spring, re-launching a bountiful food chain that fills the Arctic with life. In March 2008, an ambitious research team, led by biologist Carin Ashjian of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), launched into the Bering Sea to learn more about...

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Climate change is a change in global or regional climate patterns. It affects a large part or all of an ecosystem.

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Seals are a carnivorous mammal mostly found in the Arctic and Antarctic. They are found in colder places and thrive off the fish under the ice and shellfish, crustaceans, or sea birds. A few different types of seals are Harp, ringed, hooded, spotted, bearded and ribbon seals.

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A new flu virus has killed harbor seal pups.

Credit: Tim Saxon | shutterstock

Seals and sea lions are semiaquatic mammals that are in a group called pinnipeds, meaning "fin-footed." Walruses are also members of this group. While related, all three are in different taxonomic families.

"True" seals, also called earless seals, are members of the Phocidae family, according to the Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS). Sea lions are members of the Otariidae family (eared seals), along with several species of fur seals. Walruses are in the Odobenidae family.

As their names imply, one difference between the two types of seals is their ears. Eared seals have external ear flaps, while true seals do not. Another difference is that the rear flippers of true seals point backward, and these seals move on land with an up-and-down undulating motion. Fur seals and sea lions can rotate their hind feet and use them to walk along with some speed. Also, fur seals are so-named because they have thick fur that can trap air and help keep them warm. True seals have thin fur and use blubber for insulation.

There are 18 species of true seals, according to Seals World. The largest is the southern elephant seal. Males are massive, weighing up to 8,500 lbs. (3,855.5 kilograms). Females are much smaller, but still weigh more than a car at 2,000 lbs. (907.18 kg). Males measure about 20 feet long (6 meters), while females are about half as long.

The Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary is home to one fifth of California's harbor seals. These marine mammals rely on safe havens within the Sanctuary to haul-out, rest, and breed.

Credit: NOAA, Photo Library/Jan Roletto

The smallest is the ringed seal, with an average length of 5 feet (1.5 m) and a weight of 110 to 150 lbs. (50 to 70 kg). Unlike other seals, males and females are about the same size. The ringed seal is the most common seal in the Arctic, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

There are 16 species of eared seals; seven of them are sea lion species. One of the most recognized species, according to the NOAA, is the California sea lion, which is often featured doing tricks at zoos and aquariums. In the wild, these animals live along the West Coast of North America. They are often seen sunning themselves on beaches, docks and jetties. Males average about 700 lbs. (315 kg) and can reach above 1,000 lbs. (455 kg). Females average 240 lbs. (110 kg). [ Gallery: Seals of the World]

True seals typically live in the cold ocean waters of the Arctic or off the coasts of Antarctica. Some seals make caves in the snow to live in. Others never leave the ice pack and poke breathing holes in the ice, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. Harp, ringed, hooded, spotted, bearded and ribbon seals live in the Arctic. Crabeater, Weddell, leopard and Ross seals live in the Antarctic.

Fur seals and sea lions live in the Northern Pacific between Asia and North America and off the coasts of South America, Antarctica, southwestern Africa and southern Australia. They can spend about two years in the open ocean before returning to their breeding grounds, according to the NOAA.

Seals generally prey on fish, but they will also eat eel, squid, octopus and lobster. Leopard seals will eat penguins and smaller seals, according to Seals World. The gray seal can eat 10 pounds (4.53 kilograms) of food in one day. They sometimes skip eating for a few days, and often stop eating completely during mating season and will live off energy from their stored-up blubber for weeks.

The seal pup and Ursula, the mother. The baby is the first born at the New England Aquarium in Boston, which is trying to breed the vulnerable animals.

Credit: New England Aquarium

When mating season comes, male seals will issue deep, throaty calls to attract the attention of females. A male seal will also call out to let other males know that his females are spoken for. Males are very territorial when it comes to mating. They will fight for the right to mate, hitting and biting each other. The winner gets the chance to mate with up to 50 females in their area.

Mothers carry their young for a gestation period of around 10 months. When they feel the time is right, some seals will dig nests in the sand on which to have their young. Seals and sea lions have just one pup a year. Others, like the harp seal, will have their babies directly on icebergs. Baby seals, called pups, will stay on land until their waterproof fur grows in. This can take around a month.

Females will mate and become pregnant again as soon as her pups are weaned. Males are not able to mate until they are around 8 years old, because it takes that long for them to grow big enough and strong enough to win a mating fight.

All pinnipeds - phocids (true seals), otariids (eared seals) and odobenids (walruses) - are in different families in the suborder Caniformia (doglike carnivores) and are related to dogs, coyotes, foxes, wolves, skunks, otters and bears.

The taxonomy of seals, according to ITIS, is:

Eared seals (fur seals and sea lions)

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Chordata

Class: Mammalia

Order: Carnivora

Suborder: Caniformia

Family: Otariidae

Genera and species:

Arctocephalus (southern fur seals - eight species)

Callorhinus ursinus (northern fur seal)

Eumetopias jubatus (northern sea lion or Stellar sea lion)

Neophoca cinerea (Australian sea lion)

Otaria flavescens (South American sea lion)

Phocarctos hookeri (New Zealand sea lion)

Zalophus (California sea lions - three species)

True seals

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Chordata

Class: Mammalia

Order: Carnivora

Suborder: Caniformia

Family: Phocidae

A killer whale identifies a Weddell seal resting on an ice floe off the western Antarctic Peninsula. The whale will notify other killer whales in the area so they can coordinate a wave to wash the seal off the floe.

Credit: Robert Pitman/NOAA

Genera and species:

Cystophora cristata (hooded seal)

Erignathus barbatus (bearded seal)

Halichoerus grypus (gray seal)

Histriophoca fasciata (ribbon seal)

Hydrurga leptonyx (leopard seal)

Leptonychotes weddellii (Weddell seal)

Lobodon carcinophaga (crabeater seal)

Mirounga (elephant seals - two species)

Monachus (monk seals - three species)

Ommatophoca rossii (Ross seal)

Pagophilus groenlandicus (harp seal)

Phoca (hair seals, harbor seals)

Pusa (Caspian seal, ringed seal, Baikal seal)

All pinnipeds - seals, sea lions and walruses - are protected in U.S. waters under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, according to NOAA. Most seals are not considered endangered, according to the Red List of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). There are a few exceptions, though. The Galápagos fur seal and the monk seal are both endangered. Some local populations, such as gray seals in the Baltic Sea, are endangered. The northern fur seal and hooded seal are vulnerable. The Caribbean monk seal was declared extinct in 2008.

The crabeater seal has the largest population of any species of seal in the world. It is estimated there are 2 million to 75 million individual seals, according to the IUCN.

Elephant seals have what is called "smoker's blood" because they have the same amount of carbon monoxide in their blood as a person who smokes 40 or more cigarettes each day, according to researchers. Scientists think this high level of gas in their blood may protect them when they dive to deep levels in the ocean.

Harp seals can stay underwater for up to 15 minutes. Weddell seals are even more impressive. The can stay underwater for up to 80 minutes. They only pop up for air when they find holes in the ice layers above the ocean.

Nina Sen contributed to this article.

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Alina Bradford, Live Science Contributor

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Seals and sea lions are semiaquatic mammals that are in a group called pinnipeds, meaning "fin-footed." Walruses are also members of this group. While related, all three are in different taxonomic families. "True" seals, also called earless seals, are members of the Phocidae family, according to the Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS).