Figure 4a. This graph shows (click here) the sharp decline in sea ice extent in the Bering Sea starting at the end of January and continuing as of this post. The inset map in the top left compares sea ice extent at the beginning of January 27 and at the end of March 3, 2019.
Credit: W. Meier, National Snow and Ice Data Center
Credit: W. Meier, National Snow and Ice Data Center
May 7, 2018
The Bering Sea is losing ice fast. (click here)
When it comes to climate change, there are some signs that seem impossible to ignore—disappearing Arctic sea ice, for example. Loss of sea ice in the Bering Sea, which connects to the Arctic through the Bering Strait, is another.
Back in February, nearly half of the Bering Sea ice melted in two week’s time, and it only became worse after that. New numbers are showing that by the end of April it was just under 10 percent of normal levels. For comparison, NASA’s Earth Observatory reports that there should be “more than 500,000 square kilometers of ice”—in 2013 there was 679,606 square kilometers by this time of the year—and yet this year it is nearly gone (61,704 square kilometers).
Additionally, “the ice extent over the Chukchi Sea, just north of the Bering Sea abutting Alaska’s northwest coast, is also abnormally depleted. It recently began its melt season earlier than ever before measured.”...
So what, right? It is just some ice. Who cares?
This is Earth's climate. The heat from the equator is mitigated by the icefields and ice caps. When the ice is melting it means Earth is too hot. When Earth is too hot there is species loss. Species loss happened in the Bering Sea after it was completely iceless in less than two years.
Leading up to it's iceless state, the Bering Sea delivered entire flocks of dead sea birds.
May 30, 2021
By Chelsea Harvey
In October 2016, (click here) a tiny island in the frigid waters between Russia and Alaska was the site of a morbid mystery. Dozens of dead seabirds began suddenly washing up on the shore. The bodies continued to arrive for months.
It was a jolt to the local residents of St. Paul Island, northernmost of a group of four volcanic formations known as the Pribilof Islands, clustered in the icy Bering Sea. While dead animals might occasionally wash up under normal circumstances, the daily bombardments of sodden carcasses were clearly the mark of a mass die-off. More remarkably, most of the birds were tufted puffins, a species that rarely washes up dead on the island at all.
...More than 300 carcasses were recovered on the shoreline. Using their simulations, however, the researchers estimate that anywhere from 3,150 to 8,800 birds likely died in the event. Most of them were probably puffins.
Analyses on a handful of the bodies found that toxins, often the suspected culprit in mass animal die-offs, were not to blame. Instead, it appeared most of the birds starved to death. Many of them were molting, the researchers note—an energy-intensive process that can make birds more vulnerable to stressors like food shortages.
The food stress itself is likely being driven by changes in the Arctic related to global warming, scientists say....
Sea ice is about life. When the ice is gone there is a drastic change in the ecosystem and fisheries crash. The dead Puffins were a result of a destroyed fishery in the Bering Sea.
By Yereth Rosen
Despite having already been moved back from an eroding shoreline, Paul Hukill’s mother’s cabin was washed away in a late fall storm. Such storms now cause serious damage because protective sea ice no longer forms as early as it once did.
...This would not have (click here) happened if the sea ice were in, Hukill said.
“Right now the ocean should be frozen, you know?” he said in late November, about two weeks after the damage was done. It’s a change he has noticed over the past 10 to 15 years, he said. “When it first started happening, I thought, wait, it’s almost December and there’s almost no ice.”
Hard data backs up those observations.
In the 1980s, the Bering Sea generally started forming significant amounts of ice by early November, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center’s satellite measurements. But since then, the start of the freeze has been delayed, on average, by three weeks, said Rick Thoman of the Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
“What we know is changing is the early sea ice that used to provide a buffer is gone,” he said.
Spring melt is occurring sooner, too. From 2015 to 2020, the Bering Strait became ice free, on average, 18 days earlier than it did from 2010 to 2014, according to data collected from walrus hunters and presented at this year’s meeting of the American Geophysical Union.
Recent years’ ice loss has been stunning....
How many more tipping points will the world tolerate and still support life? One of the main theories of the Endangered Species Act was the fact that if we value life at it's least forms we would guarantee our survival as a species.
On Earth Day 2021, people need to value life and all it's forms. It is that which keeps greed in check and protects our children's heritage.
