Now Elephant Seals in the fight against global warming.

Elephant Seals are now being used to get valuable data on the ice formation, ocean current and climate change. These seals fitted with special oceanographic sensors under the Arctic ice are providing scientists with data that allow them to calculate how fast sea ice forms during winter. These data are important as sea ice reflects sunlight back into space, so less sea ice means more energy is absorbed by the earth causing more warming. Whereas conventional oceanographic monitoring from ships, satellites cannot provide observations under sea ice, these elephant seals have made it possible for scientists to observe large areas of the ocean under the sea ice in winter for the first time, according to a recent article published.


Sea ice not only affects the amount of energy reflected back into space, but also the amount of dense water around the Antarctic which drives ocean currents that transports heat around the globe. The polar regions of the world play an important role in the earth’s climate and are changing more rapidly than any other part, with the Southern Ocean warning more rapidly than the global ocean average. The elephant seals measure temperature and salinity as a function of depth as they dive down and up through the water column. They have provided scientists with a 30 fold increase in data recorded in parts of the Southern Ocean.

It seems that the global warming is the problem with our nature, we may find some solutions from within the nature. The use of elephant seals for global warming research, the replacement of various more methane generating cattle by the Kangaroos etc. should be the glaring examples in this regard.

Some Facts About the Elephant Seals:

There are two species of elephant seals, the northern and southern. Northern elephant seals can be found in California, though they prefer to frequent offshore islands rather than the North American mainland. Southern elephant seals live in sub-Antarctic waters that feature brutally cold conditions.


Southern elephants are the largest of all seals. Males can be over 20 feet (6 meters) long and weigh up to 8,800 pounds (4,000 kilograms). But these massive pinnipeds aren't called elephant seals because of their size. They take their name from their trunk like inflatable snouts.

Elephant seals were aggressively hunted for their oil, and their numbers were once reduced to the brink of extinction. Fortunately, populations have rebounded under legal protections.

Eating Kangaroos – A global warming solution from Australia?

As mentioned earlier in this Blog, when it comes to dealing with global warming through reducing green house gases, choices are very hard to make. For Australians, going for Kangaroos on the menu may be such a hard choice. Green House gases produced by grazing livestock account for 11 percent of Australia’s annual emissions. If such livestock like sheep and cattle are replaced by Kangaroos, it can reduce the contribution of the sector to annual emission by a quarter according to a recent Study. According to the same report, by 2020 the country can reduce its annual emission by 3 percent if it replaces 7 million cattle and 36 million sheep with 175 million kangaroos producing the same amount of meat. Going for Kangaroos will reduce the amount of methane produced from the gourmet of cattle. Methane’s warming potential over a 100 year time frame is 21 times higher than CO2, although its chemical lifetime is only 8-12 yrs when compared to CO2's 100 yrs. As a result reducing the amount of Methane in the atmosphere is certainly an effective short-term way of controlling the warming of the global temperature.


As far as health is concerned, Kangaroo meat can be better choice than others because of a number of reasons. Kangaroo meat is ideal for maintaining a balanced diet as it is low in cholesterol and fat and high in proteins and mineral. However, changing farming and eating practice may not be that easy for the Australians as Kangaroo enjoys the status of national icon. On the other hand, for many farmers in the country, the animal is regarded as a pest competing for gazing pastures with other more profitable animals. Australia is also one of the leading producers of wool and beef in the world.

The total green house gas emissions from Australia amount to 576 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent or 1.5% of the world emission. Kangaroos do offer low-emission meat to the Australians. Going for the Kangaroos will definitely help Australia reduce its green house gas emissions and that of the world as well.

Global Warming

Perhaps the most significant but most under dealt threat to mankind is the global warming of the temperature. The last two decades of the last century have been the warmest in the planet's history. And this global warming is not natural, rather people are causing it. People are causing global warming by burning fossil fuel i.e. oil, coal and natural gas. These burnings are releasing more CO2 into the atmosphere at present than it was so in total for hundreds of thousands of years. The CO2 traps heat into the earth resulting global warming of the atmosphere.

Although there may be debates among the environmental scientists about the effects and the level of global warming, there is no debate that we are causing it and causing it at a faster rate.

Now we really have difficult tasks ahead of us, as the human civilisation has been built around the use of large scale fossil fuel and the industrialisation based on such fuels.

We have also difficult choices to make, whether to take appropriate actions or not and when such actions have to be undertaken? Whatever our decision, the earth is decaying day by day and it will not spare us unless we do something to protect it and stop the increase of global temperature.