Climate Changes and Affects on Environment

Climate Changes and Affects on Environment

Student: Collin Downey

Global warming, a highly debated topic, is probably one of the largest factors in the climate changes in Antarctica. For example Many Ice shelves in Antarctica, which have been growing for several hundreds of years have just started to “disintegrate” Probably due to the air pollution from the last hundred years. When these ice shelves fall they go into the water adding levels to the sea level and causing the water to overflow. This highly affects the wildlife of Antarctica. About seven ice shelves that have been monitored since the 1970’s have lost about 13,500 km. This would greatly affect the rise of ocean levels and the dangers that wildlife will now have to face daily.
Throughout the years, sediment samples have been taken from the Antarctic soil. Over these years scientists have noticed a great change. This change may affect wildlife in Antarctica forever. Some proof of this would be in the Adelies island where for the last 600 years penguins have nested. Within the past 25 years there has been a very sharp decline in the amount of penguins nesting there. With this sharp decline there could be a large decrease in the penguin population. This could very well lead to the penguins becoming an endangered species, or even worse, extinct.