Northern Lights Mystery. Join a mysterious tour, looking for the Aurora Borealis, on a dark winter night in Iceland. Far from the glow of the city, we hunt for the elusive Northern Lights.
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- Northern Lights Mystery Tour. Seeing the northern lights weaving their way across the night sky is a captivating experience. Northern lights (Aurora Borealis) are most frequently seen around the North Pole.
Northern Mystery: Why Are Birds of the Arctic in Decline? Polar bears, faced with a sharp decline in the sea ice from which they hunt ringed seals, have retreated to the island and are eating the murres’ eggs. As the sea ice disappears, the murres now have to fly farther and work harder to get food that they normally find along the ice edges. And as temperatures around Hudson Bay rise, mosquitoes are hatching earlier in the season.
So many mosquitoes have swarmed on Coats Island in recent years that some of the nesting murres have. View Gallery. Ed Struzik. A Canadian wildlife technician examines a common eider, which have been hit hard by avian cholera.
Anthony Gaston of Environment Canada, who has been studying the murre colonies on the island since 1. Gaston believes that the toll these changes are taking on long- lived murres and their chicks will inevitably lead to a sharp decline and ultimate collapse of the island’s 3. Without that ice, and with polar bears and mosquitoes hitting them hard, the only future in the Arctic for them is to move north. Researchers say that the gyrfalcon, the peregrine falcon, the willow and rock ptarmigan, the long- tailed jaeger or skua, and Ross’s and ivory gulls are in decline, as are some other birds that fly north to nest in the Arctic. In many cases, the birds’ prey — from lemmings, to snowshoe hare, to cod in the southern reaches of the Arctic Ocean — are experiencing population declines and shifts in their reproductive cycles. As many as 6. 0 percent of the adult peregrines we have in the Yukon haven’t even bothered nesting in recent years.
Our gyrfalcons are breeding much later, seem to be producing fewer young, and are declining in abundance. With springtime in the Arctic advancing by two or three weeks, snowshoe hares may not be losing their white coats fast enough to make them less vulnerable to predation in spring.
Higher temperatures may be having an impact on vegetation that is critical for some birds, and warmer and shorter winters are resulting in snowfall and icing events that may not be conducive to lemming, vole, and other rodent reproduction. Predators such as the peregrine, the gyrfalcon, the snowy owl, and the Greenland long- tailed skua depend on peaks in these prey species to reproduce in numbers that will sustain their populations. For these birds, collapsing prey cycles are bad news.
A team of Danish scientists, for example, recently documented how a collapse in collared lemming cycles at two sites in Greenland between 1. They also documented a similar, albeit less drastic, decline in the population of long- tailed jaegers, part of the skua family. Mossop and others are convinced that this rush of protein that periodically flushes through the system during predator peaks is what drives these resident populations in the Arctic.
Because snow conditions are declining or changing in some places in the Arctic, that insulation is being compromised, Reid says. Lemmings, as a result, cannot produce enough offspring to bounce back from the lows that follow heavy predation. University of Alberta biologist Alastair Franke has unequivocal evidence of peregrine falcon nestlings starving to death on the west coast of Hudson Bay.
But lack of food, he says, is not the main thing killing these birds. According to a recent study led by graduate student Alexandre Anctil of the University of Quebec, some regions of the Arctic are now experiencing more periods of heavy rain each summer when compared to the early 1.
With their downy white coats insulating them against the snow and the cold, these chicks do just fine. When it rains heavily, however — as it has increasingly been doing along the west coast of Hudson Bay since 1.
Some even drowned in their nests. Anctil and Franke came to this conclusion by analyzing meteorological records dating back to 1. With the help of remote cameras, they discovered that sheltered chicks fared better than birds that were exposed to heavy rain events. All of this counters the good news for a species that has undergone a strong recovery after nearly being driven to extinction in the 1.
Acadia University biologist Mark Mallory has been watching this and other similar events unfold with concern for the fulmars, murres, black guillemots, and other year- round Arctic residents that he studies in the High Arctic. This past summer was an especially bad one for the birds. If we see ecosystem changes migrating into the High Arctic, I don’t know how these birds will adapt,' says one scientist.
As happened with some regularity in the past, snow, ice, and cold conditions lingered for so long that the terns, gulls, and jaegers at Nasaruvaalik Island didn’t even lay eggs. Mallory says that while the birds are adapted to deal with these occasional seasonal extremes, the overall warming trend is a real cause for concern. The impact of climate change is often an indirect one, creating subtle mismatches between predator and prey that may be caused by changes in snow and vegetation, icing events, the arrival of an invasive species, or the early melting of sea ice.
What’s more, climate change is not be the only reason some birds like the ivory gull are in trouble. For example, Mallory and colleague Grant Gilchrist of Environment Canada once thought that receding sea ice — which makes it increasingly difficult for these birds to forage for fish and marine invertebrates — was the main reason for the 8.
Canada’s ivory gull population since the 1. But now he and other scientists have evidence to suggest that high levels of mercury, which the gulls may be ingesting from foraging on seal carcasses left behind by polar bears, may also be a factor. Even with that, says Mallory. We know that the warming that is coming will greatly exceed anything we have seen so far,' says one expert.
Laval University scientist Gilles Gauthier — who has spent the last quarter century leading a team of scientists studying the fauna and flora on Bylot Island in the eastern Arctic — cautions his colleagues not to read too much into short- term trends in animal cycles. But Gauthier says that when change happens in a simple food web such as the Arctic, it can occur abruptly, whether from declines in prey abundance, the appearance of new competitors or diseases, or changes in vegetation. What we do know, though, is that the warming that is coming will greatly exceed anything we have seen so far. In order to understand how plants and animals can adapt to constraints brought on by rapid change, we need to better understand these linkages between different species. In previous articles for Yale Environment 3. Canadian government’s assault on environmental regulations and explored threats to Canada's Peace- Athabasca Delta.
MORE BY THIS AUTHORAs Arctic Ocean Ice Disappears, Global Climate Impacts Intensify The top of the world is turning from white to blue in summer as the ice that has long covered the north polar seas melts away. This monumental change is triggering a cascade of effects that will amplify global warming and could destabilize the global climate system. READ MOREWhat’s Killing Native Birds in The Mountain Forests of Kauai?
Biologist Eben Paxton is sounding the alarm about the catastrophic collapse of native bird populations on the Hawaiian island of Kauai. His group's research has uncovered the culprit: disease- carrying mosquitoes that have invaded the birds' mountain habitat.
READ MOREHow Climate Change Could Jam The World's Ocean Circulation Scientists are closely monitoring a key current in the North Atlantic to see if rising sea temperatures and increased freshwater from melting ice are altering the “ocean conveyor belt” — a vast oceanic stream that plays a major role in the global climate system. READ MORE Chocolate in the Jungle: Racing To Save a Disappearing Forest A runner- up in the 2. Yale Environment 3. Video Contest tells the story of a small group of Ecuadorians working to preserve remnants of South America’s ecologically rich Choc.
Scientists say the activities are destroying key coral reef ecosystems and will heighten the risks of a fisheries collapse in the region. READ MOREHigh Stakes on the High Seas: A Call for International Reservesby nicola jones. Marine protected areas in national waters have proven successful in helping depleted fish stocks to recover.
Now, there is growing momentum for the creation of extensive reserves on the high seas as a way of reversing decades of rampant overfishing. READ MOREFor China’s Polluted Megacities, A Focus on Slashing Emissionsby mike ives.
The booming industrial center of Shenzhen is a showcase for Chinese efforts to cut CO2 emissions and make the nation's burgeoning cities more livable. But it remains to be seen whether China's runaway industrial development can give way to a low- carbon future. READ MORERocky Flats: A Wildlife Refuge Confronts Its Radioactive Pastby fred pearce. The Rocky Flats Plant outside Denver was a key U. S. Now, following a $7 billion cleanup, the government is preparing to open a wildlife refuge on the site to the public, amid warnings from some scientists that residual plutonium may still pose serious health risks. READ MOREPressure Mounts to Reform Our Throwaway Clothing Cultureby marc gunther. Americans dispose of about 1.
Los Angeles Looks to Find Out by jim robbins. Officials are moving ahead with a major revitalization of the Los Angeles River – removing miles of concrete along its banks and re- greening areas now covered with pavement. But the project raises an intriguing question: Just how much of an urban river can be returned to nature? READ MOREHow Growing Sea Plants Can. Help Slow Ocean Acidificationby nicola jones. Researchers are finding that kelp, eelgrass, and other vegetation can effectively absorb CO2 and reduce acidity in the ocean. Growing these plants in local waters, scientists say, could help mitigate the damaging impacts of acidification on marine life.
Northern Lights Mystery. Join us on a dark winter night to experience one of nature’s most spectacular displays, when the Northern lights dance across the sky in dramatic shapes and colors.
Located under the . Northern lights (Aurora Borealis) are most frequently seen around the North Pole, within an oval shaped region drawn around the Northern hemisphere called the . Crisp cold evenings with skies clear enough to see stars is a good indicator for auroral activity. Operating Northern lights tours in Iceland for over 1.