The Polar Museum is one of the most prominent museums in Norway located in the former Customs House on the quayside at a town called Tromso. It is one of the most exciting polar expeditions in the world. The city, established in the 1800s, was the heart of seal hunting in Northern Norway. This Museum exhibits and highlights the traditions of polar seafaring. If anyone has a dream of seeing the ship and all the equipment involved in the sea activities, then the Polar Museum is the place to be. There are several exhibition subjects in the Museum including; “Overwintering in the Arctic, the trapper Henry Rudi, killer of 713 polar bears, the first woman to winter in the Arctic-WannyWoldstad, Seal Hunting in the Arctic Ocean.” The lives and hunting expeditions of the duo Fridtjof Nansen and Roald Amundsen accompanied to the South Pole by Helmer Hansen Hjalmar Johansen. Besides, the discovery of the region in the 1500s by Svalbard and WillhelmBarentz, the 1600-1700s whaling and the overwintering of Russia. As a curator of the Museum, therefore, I am putting a small exhibit of a display cabinet with a theme of ‘Climate change in the Arctic.' I will select five items from the assembly to advance this theme.
1. The first item from our cabinet is found in the Antarctic Collections. This item is called a sledge. A sledge is a vehicle on runners pulled by wild animals over snow or ice. A boat was widely used in the Arctic during the ancient times to transport both the passengers and the goods over the ice and the snow. This item fully illustrates the theme of the Climate change in the Arctic. While these sledges were very common during the ancient times, they are no longer popular in the modern times. During the ancient times, the climate used to be very cold thus the cases of snow or ice were common. However, with the rising claims of global warming especially in the Arctic, the use of Arctic is becoming very rare as there are no longer cases of snow or ice in the Arctic Ocean or the rest of the world. These sledges, therefore, remind us of the change in global warming.
2. The second item in our cabinet is the clothing. This item purely reminds us of the changes of the climate in the Arctic. While people in the ancient times used to dress in cumbersome clothes as expressed by this item, which is no longer the case. Climate during the ancient times used to be very cold. This prompted people to dress in cumbersome clothes so that they may be warm(Cox, 184). However, with the changes in the climate, the kind of clothes worn by people nowadays is very light. This is because the weather nowadays is hot due to the global warming happening around the world and especially in the Arctic.
3. The third item on our cabinet display to demonstrate the climatic changes in the Arctic are the navigational equipment. Compared to the modern times, navigational equipment during those times used to be very strong. This proves that the climate during those times used to be cold and windy. However, that is no longer the case as navigational equipment in modern times is now light. This proves that there has been a change in a climate whereby the world is warming.
4. Most of the scientific equipment in the museum are the items used in measuring the coldness during those ancient times. The conditional changes serve as a proof that the weather during those times used to be very cold as compared to the present day. This is a perfect proof that there has been global warming happening around the Arctic Ocean.
5. The final item in our cabinet that shows the changes in the climate is the foodstuff. The type of food people used to eat during the ancient times was warm food. This proves that people were experiencing freezing weather; thus, they did not like cold foods. That is no longer the case as people nowadays prefer raw food due to the changing climatic conditions. This proves that there is a climatic change that is resulting in warming at the Arctic.
For any visitor at this museum, he or she should understand the reality of the climatic change to our environment. The visitor should carefully look at the displayed items given the changing climatic conditions. He should, therefore, learn how people used to eat, how they used to travel, how they used to fish and how they used to hunt. The visitor will realize that these mentioned exhibitions have changed with the changes in the climate. In the visitor’s visit to the museum, I will guide him on the exact location of the items relating to climate change, the items’ historical value to the climate change and all the other items in the room. By the end of the visit, the visitor should be able to understand the transformation the world has gone through in terms of global warming.
It should be noted that the Arctic warms twice as much as compared to the rest of the world. This has been attributed to several factors including reduction of the forest cover in the mainland bordering the Arctic. Human activities in the shore have also significantly contributed to the story of climatic change in the Arctic. People residing in the mainland along the Arctic Ocean should, therefore, be responsible for all their activities so that they may reduce global warming in the Arctic Ocean.
The study also observes that countries are not living up to the promise of global warming. Many western nations have refused to implement the Agreements agreed on by the United Nations Council on Environmental matters concerning ways of reducing global warming in the world. Several superpower countries are releasing poisoned emissions into the air that increases chances of global warming.
The statistics on the extent of Arctic sea ice between the period of 1979 to the year 2015 shows that the extend of Arctic sea ice has been diminishing at alarming levels. While in the year 1979 the extent of Arctic sea ice was 6,500,000 square kilometers, it reduced drastically to reach 4,000,000 square kilometers in the year 2005. The average reduction in sea ice extent therefore is calculated as follows:
Average change=change during the period/the the number of years
=(6,500,000-4,000,000)/26
The average change in Arctic sea ice extent therefore is 96,154 square kilometers per year. Having put that in mind, the projected Arctic sea ice extend in 2016 is:
=4,000,000-(96,154*11)
The estimated sea ice coverage in the year 2016 should therefore be 2,942,306 square kilometers.
If the sea ice extent declined at an average of 110,000 square kilometers per year, then the estimated sea ice coverage in 2016 should be 3,600,000-(110,000*4) =3,160,000 square kilometers. If the actual coverage in 2016 was 4.7*106km2, then the above predictions represent 10% and 12% of the actual values respectively. Making decisions using extrapolation is unreliable as it tends to assume all factors remain constant and that changes observed are negligible.
In conclusion and as a recommendation, care should, therefore, be taken in making sure that global warming and especially at the Arctic Ocean is arrested at the initial stage. This can be done by visiting historical sites like the Polar Museum to understand fully how time has changed. An observation of the items used during ancient times and now will provide a clear picture that global warming is a concern and should be addressed. Unless and until all the above issues are addressed objectively, then the mess will be dealt conclusively.
Works cited
Root, Terry L., et al. "Fingerprints of global warming on wild animals and plants." Nature 421.6918 (2003): 57.
Cox, Peter M., et al. "Acceleration of global warming due to carbon-cycle feedbacks in a coupled climate model." Nature408.6809 (2000): 184.
Hansen, James E. "Sir John Houghton: Global Warming: The Complete Briefing." Journal of Atmospheric Chemistry 30.3 (1998): 409-412.
