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Polar bears have been in crisis for 20,000 years, but how long will they survive?

2023-11-24 21:13:55Lifestyle SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX
Polar bears have been in crisis for 20,000 years, but how long will they
Polar bears are in crisis

Over the years, polar bears have become a symbol of environmental catastrophes caused by global warming, a situation which, as a study published in Science Advances says, has much deeper roots than believed, writes the Italian magazine focus.it .

Their population is declining rapidly because it is a species particularly sensitive to climate change.

In short, what we have witnessed in recent decades is nothing new: it is "just" a disturbing acceleration of an older phenomenon.

Polar bears are considered a sentinel species, whose state of health is indicative of the general conditions of the habitat in which they live.

For this study, the team from the University of Copenhagen took into account in particular the population living off the coast of Greenland, which includes a number of specimens of about 5,000 units.

The analysis integrated data about the genetic code of the bears, their diet and distribution, but also the information we have about the local climate: the result is the discovery that the population of Greenland has been decreasing in number.

The reason is the increase in sea temperatures, which causes the ice to recede and therefore the bears have less food available.

Over the past 20,000 years, Greenland's waters have seen their temperatures rise by 0.2/0.5 °C: it seems little, but it was enough to cause a collapse in the polar bear population of 20 to 40% .

The real problem is that in the coming decades climate projections say that these same waters will warm between 2 and 5 °C, that is ten times more than what has happened in the last twenty millennia.

This explains why the plight of polar bears is considered so critical: sensitive to even minimal increases, they will face very rapid warming that will deprive them of the ice they need to live and forage.

According to researchers, the situation is not good for polar bears.


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