Global Warming - Melting Ice Caps in North Pole

                         When the north pole’s ice melts, are there any harmful effects?

Luna Kim 7CH

Have you ever thought that north pole’s ice melting will effect us harmfully? Well, it does. North pole’s ice melts because of the global warming. Global warming is the gradual heating of Earth's surface, oceans and atmosphere. Human-caused global warming occurs when human activity introduces too much of certain types of gas into the atmosphere. These gases include water vapor, carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O). The most prevalent greenhouse gas is CO2. Since global warming has been a relevant big issue, North pole’s icecap have been melting a lot and had an enormous effect on the Earth. 3 main effects are Eco system, sea level rises and weather pattern.

 The first main effect is “Sea level rise”. There have been a lot of ‘sea level rises’ problems. Sea level rises because the ice are melting. Srevltlana Jevrejeva from the Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory once said “For the past 2000 years, the sea level was very stable, it only had 20 cm differences. But by the end of the century, we predict that it will rise by between 0.8M to 1.5M. The rapid rise in the coming years is associated with the rapid melting of ice sheets.” It has been a surprise for us to know that it changed a lot. Did you ever heard about Greenland icecaps? There have been a news about Greenland. It has been reported that ice in Greenland melted and sea level have rise 20 feet. Although the IPCC organization predicted in 2007 that only 0.6 to 1.9 foot sea level will rise by 2100 due to melting of Greenland ice but already it had passed the prediction. As the sea level rises, the polar bears are having a hard time because of all the ices that are melting.

 The second main effect is the ‘ Eco system’. Eco system has a strong connection with polar bears. When the north pole ice melts by greenhouse effect, polar bear don’t have a spare space for hunting and living. The polar bear will all extinct and eco system will be ruined. Scientists had already estimated that sea ice will have the outcome of a huge loss of 2/3 of the polar bear’s population, and force the remaining bears into a smaller and iceless area. These evidence shows polar bear will extinct and get perished. When polar bears die out, eco system will be destroyed. Weird weather patterns can also affect the ice melting in the north pole.

The third main effect is the ‘weather pattern’. The continuous loss of Arctic ice will dramatically affect global weather and precipitation patterns in the following decadesf. It has been reported that during 1976 to 2006, years that had unusually low summertime Arctic sea ice also had a 10-20 percent reduction in the temperature different between the Equator and the north pole. This resulted in reduced winter precipitation over all of the US, Alaska, and the Northern Europe.

 There are a lot of effects when North pole’s ices melt. I wish you guys will understand the problems of the north pole’s ice melt. Throughout my essay, I introduced ‘sea level rises’, ‘weather pattern’ and ‘Eco system’. When we discuss about this topic, we need to think “are we able to solve this problem or not?”. “Are we still going to face this terrible situation?”