Tags: Walrus, Climate Change, Changing Arctic Sea Ice, Alaska Native Perspectives on Climate Change, Traditional Knowledge, Bering Sea, Arctic Ocean
Walrus, walrus hunters, and the study of sea ice is the focus of a [[LINK||http:// http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2010/08/10/10climatewire-another-symbol-of-the-arctics-complex-ecosyst-8466.html?pagewanted=3 ||New York Times Climate Wire story|||| target=']] by Lauren Morello that portrays the long-term dependence of Yupik and Inupiat hunters on the Pacific walrus for the meat, bone tools, skins to cover boats, gutskin clothing, clothing in the context of a rapidly-warming Arctic which is changing the icescape upon which both walruses and people depend. The behavior of sea ice is no longer predictable. MORE >>
The National Sea and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) reported that a surge in late winter ice growth resulted in a delay of one week in the onset of ice melt in the Beaufort, Chukchi, East Siberian, and Bering seas, compared to the 1979-2000 average. MORE >>
Tags: Climate Change, Alaska Native Perspectives on Climate Change, Arctic Ocean, Traditional Knowledge Changes in Alaska Marine Ecosystems
Mary Pete, recently appointed to the U.S. Arctic Research Commission to represent indigenous perspectives and to focus on anthropology, subsistence, and education; testified at a Senate field hearing on the implications for federal resources and local communities of a changing Arctic in Barrow on August 29, 2010. MORE >>
The combined global land and ocean average surface temperature was the warmest on record at 56.3°F (13.5°C), which is 1.39°F (0.77°C) above the 20th century average of 54.9°F (12.7°C).
Additionally, the National Sea Ice Data Center reported that Arctic sea ice reached its maximum extent for the year on March 31, 2010, at 15.25 million square kilometers (5.89 million square miles). MORE >>
One of the positive feedbacks from global warming is the thawing of Arctic permafrost. This releases methane, a greenhouse gas over 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide, into the atmosphere. Investigations into Arctic methane have tended to focus on land permafrost. However, there are also vast amounts of methane held underwater in the East Siberian Arctic Shelf (ESAS). MORE >>
NOAA scientist Sue Moore reported at the 2010 Alaska Marine Science Symposium on a study that related the changes in Arctic sea ice extent with the movements and habitats of polar bears, walruses, and gray whales in the Pacific side of the Arctic region. MORE >>
A research team at the NOAA NMFS Auke Bay Lab explored the physiological effects of acidification on marine fishes with an experiment to determine the effects of lowered pH on survival and growth of Pacific herring embryos. MORE >>
With growing concerns about the effects of global warming on polar bears, it's increasingly important to understand how other environmental threats, such as mercury pollution, are affecting these magnificent Arctic animals. MORE >>
Two scientific journal articles published in November, 2009, related the extent of sea ice melt to undersaturation of aragonite which is required for shell-building by many plankton and invertebrate species in Arctic waters. A combination of processes are now working to increase acidification and lower the concentrations of forms of calcite used for shell-building:
**increased carbon dioxide in the ocean from anthropogenic sources,
**freshening and dilution as ice melts,
**increased biological activity after the ice melts which takes up calcite from surface waters and depletes it in subsurface waters as organic matters decays and produced CO2, and
**upwellings of low pH waters. MORE >>
Arctic sea ice has duped satellites into reporting thick multiyear sea ice where in fact none exists, a new study by University of Manitoba researcher David Barber has found. In 2008 and 2009 satellite data showed a growth in Arctic sea ice extension leaving some to reckon global warming was reversing. But after sailing an ice breaker to the southern Beaufort Sea this past September Dr. Barber and his colleagues found something unexpected: thin, "rotten" ice can electromagnetically masquerade as thick, multiyear sea ice. And contrary to what satellites recently suggested, we are actually speeding up the loss of the remaining, healthy, multiyear sea ice. MORE >>
Tags: Arctic Ocean, Climate Change, Ocean Water Temperatures
Recent, end-of-arctic-summer ship journeys have helped scientists discover that waters of the Arctic Ocean have cooled, at least in the area they surveyed. MORE >>
According to a new study, ecologists estimate that Arctic lands and oceans are responsible for up to 25 percent of the global net sink of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Under current predictions of global warming, this Arctic sink could be diminished or reversed, potentially accelerating predicted rates of climate change. MORE >>
The National Snow and Ice Data Center released its summary of summer sea-ice conditions in the Arctic on Tuesday, noting a substantial expansion of the extent of “second-year ice” — floes thick enough to have persisted through two summers of melting. The result could be a reprieve, at least for a while, from the recent stretch of remarkable summer meltdowns. MORE >>
The Arctic Ocean is becoming acidic so quickly that it will reach corrosive levels within 10 years, a leading scientist has warned. Waters around the North Pole are absorbing carbon dioxide at such a rate that they will soon start dissolving the shells of living sea creatures. MORE >>
Tags: Climate Change, Changing Arctic Sea Ice, Arctic Ocean, Water Temperature Patterns
The National Climatic Data Center has released its review of worldwide sea surface temperatures for August and for the stretch from June through August and finds that both the month and the “summer” (as looked at from the Northern Hemisphere) were the warmest at least since 1880, when such records were first systematically compiled. MORE >>
Two German cargo ships have successfully navigated across Russia's Arctic-facing northern shore from South Korea to Siberia without the help of icebreakers MORE >>
Tags: Arctic ocean, Climate Change, Long-term Temperature Patterns
Although the Arctic has been receiving less energy from the summer sun for the past 8,000 years, Arctic summer temperatures began climbing in 1900 and accelerated after 1950. The decade from 1999 to 2008 was the warmest in the Arctic in two millennia. MORE >>
Thousands of walruses are congregating on Alaska's northwest coast, a sign that their Arctic sea ice environment has been altered by climate change. MORE >>
Scientists carrying out studies of wildlife in the Arctic say global warming is causing dramatic changes in animal and plant life, threatening some species with extinction. The report is a compilation of studies of Arctic ecosystems by an international team of scientists who have been collaborating during the fourth International Polar Year, which ended in 2008 MORE >>
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