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What You Will Do

Make a poster to explain how climate change is affecting polar ice mass, 

how it may affect humans, and what we can do about it. Courtesy Kathy Crane, NOAA Arctic Research Office

During the past thirty years, the Arctic environment has changed like 

never before. Temperatures have increased more than twice as much as 

on the rest of Earth and sea ice has been getting smaller and smaller. 

These changes have opened the Arctic to new commercial activities such 

as shipping, oil and mineral exploration and tourism. These new opportunities have increased the need to understand more about Arctic change 

and its effects on weather and climate, as well as how it may affect human 

communities and industry. The information that NOAA generates about the 

Arctic helps to conserve and manage Arctic resources to provide healthy, 

productive and resilient communities and ecosystems.

The Arctic Report Card for 2016 is a report that brings together the work of 

61 scientists from 11 nations who report on air, ocean, land and ecosystem 

changes. It is used around the world to track changes in the Arctic and how 

those changes may affect communities, businesses and people.

What are the 

Impacts of 

shrinking 

Polar Ice Caps?

“Rarely have we seen the Arctic show a clearer, 

stronger or more pronounced signal of persistent 

warming and its cascading effects on the 

environment than this year.”

~ Jeremy Mathis, director of NOAA’s Arctic Research Program

What are the 

Impacts Of

Shrinking 

Polar Ice caps?
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Major findings in the 2016 report include:

• Warmer air temperature: Average annual air 

temperature over land areas was the highest 

in the observational record, representing a 6.3 

degree Fahrenheit (3.5 degree Celsius) increase 

since 1900. Arctic temperatures continue to 

increase at double the rate of the global temperature increase.

• Record low snow cover: Spring snow cover set 

a record low in the North American Arctic, 

where the May snow cover extent fell below 

1.5 million square miles (4 million square 

kilometers) for the first time since satellite 

observations began in 1967.

• Smaller Greenland ice sheet: The Greenland ice 

sheet continued to lose mass in 2016, as it 

has since 2002 when satellite-based measurement began. 

• Record low sea ice: The Arctic sea ice minimum 

extent from mid-October 2016 to late November 2016 was the lowest since the satellite 

record began in 1979. Arctic ice is thinning, 

with multi-year ice now comprising 22 percent 

of the ice cover as compared to 45 percent of 

ice cover in 1985.

• Above-average Arctic Ocean temperature: Sea 

surface temperature in August 2016 was 9 

degrees Fahrenheit (5 degrees Celsius) above 

the average for 1982-2010 in the Barents and 

Chukchi seas and off the east and west coasts 

of Greenland.

• Arctic Ocean productivity: Springtime melting 

and retreating sea ice allowed for more sunlight to reach the upper layers of the ocean, 

stimulating widespread blooms of algae and 

other tiny marine plants which form the base 

of the marine food chain, another sign of the 

rapid changes occurring in a warming Arctic.

The 2016 report also includes scientific essays 

on carbon dioxide in the Arctic Ocean, on land 

and in the atmosphere, and changes among 

small mammals.

• Ocean acidification: More than other oceanic 

areas, the Arctic Ocean is more vulnerable to 

ocean acidification, a process driven by the 

ocean’s uptake of increased carbon dioxide 

from Earth’s atmosphere. Ocean acidification is 

expected to intensify in the Arctic, adding new 

stress to marine fisheries, particularly those 

that need calcium carbonate to build shells. 

This change affects Arctic communities that 

depend on fish for food security, livelihoods 

and culture.

• Carbon cycle changing: Overall, the warming 

tundra is now releasing more carbon into the 

(map) Temperatures across the Arctic from October 2015-September 2016 compared to the 1981-2010 average. (graph) Yearly temperatures since 1900 compared to the 1981-2010 average for the 

Arctic (orange line) and the globe (gray). NOAA Climate.gov map 

based on National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) 

reanalysis data from NOAA’s Earth System Research Lab. Graph 

adapted from Figure 1.1 in the 2016 Arctic Report Card. 
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atmosphere than it is taking up. 

Twice as much organic carbon is 

locked in the northern permafrost 

as is currently in the Earth’s atmosphere. If the permafrost melts and 

releases that carbon, it could have 

profound effects on weather and 

climate in the Arctic and the rest of 

the Earth.

• Small mammals: Recent shifts in 

the population of small mammals, 

such as shrews, may be the signs of 

broader consequences of environmental change.

These changes spell big trouble for animals that 

depend on sea ice for their survival. Polar bears, 

for example, live on sea ice all year. They rear 

their young on the ice, and hunt along the edges 

where seals make holes in the ice to breathe. 

An adult polar bear usually eats one seal every 

four or fi ve days. When the sea ice melts during 

the summer, polar bears have to swim between 

fl oating chunks of ice (called “fl oes”) to continue 

their hunt. Until recently, the fl oes were usually 

less than 15 miles apart. But as more and more 

of the perennial ice melts, the fl oes have become 

much farther apart, and the bears have had to 

swim over much longer distances. 

Polar bears face other problems, too. Ocean 

currents can carry chemical pollution thousands of 

miles, and some of it reaches the Arctic. Chemicals 

called PCBs, for example, have been found in polar 

bears. These chemicals cause problems with polar 

bears’ immune systems, so the bears are more 

likely to get sick. 

What You Will Need

❒ Color copies of images from “Images for 

Shrinking Polar Ice Caps” or other images 

you fi nd in web searches

❒ Information from the introduction to this 

activity.

❒ Crayons, colored markers, or colored pencils

❒ Poster board

❒ Scissors

Warning

Be careful with sharp scissors!

How to Do It

1. Use the images and information to create a poster that explains what is happening to arctic sea ice, how this is related to 

climate change, why this is important to 

us, and what we can do about it. 

2. Show your poster at school, to your parents, and to other groups. The more people 

know about climate change and how it affects life on Earth, the more they will take 

action to protect Earth’s ecosystems.

Want to Do More?

Take a look at the short video of Arctic Report Card 2016. www.youtube.com/

watch?v=G0rp6-BEur8&feature=youtu.be

For an in-depth read, go to the Arctic Report 

Card: Update for 2016 www.arctic.noaa.gov/

Report-Card/Report-Card-2016

www.arctic.noaa.gov/ – NOAA’s Arctic Theme 

Page with information and data about the 

Arctic for scientists, students, teachers and 

the general public.

For more information on methane, see www.

climate.gov/print/827815

For more information on ocean acidifi cation, see 

http://oceanacidifi cation.noaa.gov

The Greenland ice sheet continued to lose mass in 2016, as it has 

since 2002 when satellite-based measurement began. Melting began 

the second earliest in the 37-year record of observations, close to 

the record set in 2012. Graphic shows Greenland ice sheet mass 

each month since April 2002. (Climate.gov; data provided by Marco 

Tedesco/Lamont-Doherty)
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Images for Shrinking Ice Cap Posters

Courtesy NASA

Courtesy NASA

(map) Stretching from Alaska to Scandinavia to Russia, and hundreds of feet deep in places, the Arctic’s frozen soils--permafrost--contain twice as much carbon as what’s already in the atmosphere. As the Arctic heats up, permafrost may become a major source of greenhouse gases, which would further accelerate global warming. (top middle) Permafrost is like a giant freezer for carbon: thousands of years worth of plant, animal, and microbe remains mixed with blocks of ice. Historically, only a shallow “active layer” thawed in the short summer. (top right) In today’s warming Arctic, permafrost is thawing and the active layer is getting deeper. (bottom left) Warming in the growing season has increased plant growth and allowed plants to remove more carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air during photosynthesis, but it is also thawing the frozen soils and stimulating decomposition of organic matter by soil microbes. Microbial activity releases the greenhouse gases CO2 and methane (CH4). (bottom right) When winter comes, the uppermost soil layer re-freezes quickly as air temperatures drop. But deeper layers, insulated from the frigid air, re-freeze more slowly. In the past decade, the parts of the Arctic tundra that are routinely observed have become a net source of carbon-containing greenhouse gases because microbial activity is continuing well into winter after plants go dormant. NOAA Climate.gov drawing. Permafrost map from NSIDC.
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Courtesy Kelley Elliott, NOAA

Ocean acidification impact on pteropods

Pteropods, or sea butterflies, are a vital food source for salmon and other commercially 

important fish. Shown here in laboratory conditions are (left) a pteropod that has lived for 

six days in normal waters and (right) a pteropod showing the effects of living in acidified 

water for the same time period. The white lines indicate shell dissolution and explain why 

ocean acidification is often called “osteoporosis of the sea.” (NOAA)

One species of shrew is now invading north into the Arctic, setting off a major reorganization of animal 

communities at the top of the world. Accelerating climate change in the Arctic is spurring the northward invasion of shrews, bringing an array of tapeworms and other parasites, according to authors of an 

essay in 2016’s report card, “Small species indicate big changes: Shrews and their parasites. www.arctic.

noaa.gov/Report-Card/Report-Card-2016/ArtMID/5022/ArticleID/268/Shrews-and-Their-ParasitesSmall-Species-Indicate-Big-Changes” Phil Myers, photographer; copyright holder/Museum of Zoology, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor

Methane bubbles trapped in ice on Abraham Lake, in Alberta, Canada, during winter 2016-17.

Photo by Flickr user juneaidrao, used under a Creative Commons license .

Courtesy Joel Garlich-Miller, USFWS