In 2012, the polar bear DNA showed that this iconic species had faced extinction before, most likely in the warm period of 130,000 years ago, but it has rebounded. For researchers, this discovery raises an urgent question: Can polar bears make a comeback again? Research like this has encouraged an ambitious plan to build a sanctuary where, from polar bears to microbes, Arctic ice-dependent species can squat down and wait for climate change.

For this reason, environmentalists are pinning their hopes on an area in the Arctic known as the “Last Ice Zone”-where ice that exists throughout the summer will survive the longest time in a warming world. Here, the Arctic will take the final stand. However, how long the last ice zone will remain on summer sea ice remains unclear.

Computer simulations released in September predicted that if fossil fuel emissions do not warm the earth by 2 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial level (this is the target set by the Paris climate agreement in 2015), then the last ice zone may remain indefinitely Summer sea ice (SN: 12/12/15). However, a recent United Nations report found that according to current commitments to reduce emissions, the climate will warm by 2.7 degrees Celsius by 2100, which means the end of Arctic summer sea ice (SN: 10/26/21).

Nevertheless, some scientists hope that humans will unite to control emissions and implement technologies to capture carbon and other greenhouse gases, which can reduce or even reverse the impact of climate change on sea ice. At the same time, the last ice zone can buy time and race against extinction for ice-dependent species, as a refuge for them to survive climate change, and maybe one day they will make a comeback. The final ice zone is a vast floating landscape of solid ice extending from the northern coast of Greenland to the western Canadian island of Banks.

This area is approximately the length of the west coast of the United States and is home to the oldest and thickest ice layer in the Arctic, thanks to Canada’s northernmost archipelago, which prevents sea ice from drifting south and melting in the Atlantic Ocean. When sea ice from other parts of the Arctic hits this natural barrier, it piles up to form towering long ice ridges that stretch for several kilometers in the frozen landscape. From above, the area appears desolate.

“This is a very quiet place,” said Robert Newton, an oceanographer at Columbia University and co-author of a recent sea ice model, which was published in the journal Science on September 2. “A lot of life is at the bottom of the ice.” The muddy underbelly of the iceberg is home to plankton and unicellular algae, which have evolved to grow directly on the ice.

These species form the backbone of the ecosystem, from tiny crustaceans to beluga whales, ringed seals and polar bears.

News Source : ScienceNews