Reply #: How about an article for those who don't know this is happening [View All]

[Beaverhausen]

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Science/story?id=1407585

By BILL BLAKEMORE

Dec. 15, 2005 -- NASA has just announced that for the fourth year in a row, it has recorded the hottest annual global temperatures since reliable records started in the late 1800s.

This year, 2005, tied for the hottest year ever with 1998 — and 1998 was "an El Niño of the Century year — and El Niños always make it hotter. If this had been an El Niño year, it would surely have been the hottest year of all," Dr. James Hansen, NASA earth sciences director, told ABC News.

As is well-known by now, NASA reported at summer's end that, over the last 30 years, the Arctic's summer sea ice cover had melted back 30 percent. As a number of scientists have calculated, it could be completely gone long before the end of the century.

That's why three environmental groups have filed suit against the U.S. government to get the polar bear listed as an endangered species.

Drowning Polar Bears

The polar bear's Latin name is Ursus maritimus — which means "sea bear" — because it is almost entirely dependent on the sea ice for its food. It spends almost all its time roaming the frozen sea surface hunting its favorite sustenance — the seal — and training its cubs to do the same. On land, polar bears are clumsy hunters so their existence is threatened as the Arctic keeps melting. Already, field researchers have reported disruptions in the polar bears' well-being — a growing number of females now failing to gain enough weight during the summer to be able to breed.

A survey by the U.S. Mineral Management Service has recorded elevated numbers of polar bears drowning. Some have been found swimming far out in the warming Arctic sea as the sea ice pulls back farther from land and the bears try to swim to shore.

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