For Arctic marine mammals, the future is especially uncertain. Loss of sea ice and warming temperatures are shifting already fragile Northern ecosystems. The precarious state of those mammals is underscored in a multinational study led by a University of Washington scientist, published this week in Conservation Biology, assessing the status of all circumpolar species and […]
Like flecks of pepper on chowder, all of the Spectacled Eiders on the planet are now gathered amid sea ice and steaming open leads in the Bering Sea. “It’s a mass of life in this desolate area,” said Matt Sexson, who once rode an icebreaker to see the winter gathering south of St. Lawrence Island. […]
A new NOAA-led report shows that Arctic air temperatures continue to rise at more than twice the rate of global air temperatures, a phenomenon known as Arctic amplification. Increasing air and sea surface temperatures, declining reflectivity at the surface of the Greenland ice sheet, shrinking spring snow cover on land and summer ice on the […]
Once again, Pacific Walrus are hauling out on the beaches in northwestern Alaska as the sea ice retreats beyond their reach. NOAA estimates as many as 35,000 have hauled out onto the beach five miles to the north of Point Lay. Prior to the massive melts that have occurred in recent years because of climate change […]