A major shift in western Arctic wind patterns occurred throughout the winter of 2017 and the resulting changes in sea ice movement are possible indicators of a changing climate, says Kent Moore, a professor of physics at the University of Toronto Mississauga. Thanks to data collected by buoys dropped from aircraft onto the Arctic Ocean’s […]
Reductions in sea ice in the Arctic have a clear impact on animals such as polar bears that rely on frozen surfaces for feeding, mating and migrating. But sea ice loss is changing Arctic habitat and affecting other species in more indirect ways, new research finds. Beluga whales that spend summers feeding in the Arctic […]
Two things happened on top of the world this week. In Utqiagvik (formerly Barrow), on Jan. 22 the sun topped the horizon for the first time since mid-November. The day before that, Jan. 21, was the first time since Halloween the town’s thermometers recorded a below-normal daily average air temperature. The returning daylight for the […]
CHUKCHI SEA, Alaska— Hundreds of Pacific walruses have hauled out of Arctic waters near Alaska’s Point Lay due to declining sea ice levels, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced today. It’s the earliest haul out the agency has ever seen, and scientists fear a repeat of stampedes that have killed hundreds of walruses in recent […]