1/3 Of Sea Ice Cover In The Bering Sea Gone In Eight Days; Global Sea Ice @ Record Lows

[hatrack]

In just eight days in mid-February, nearly a third of the sea ice covering the Bering Sea off Alaska's west coast disappeared. That kind of ice loss and the changing climate as the planet warms is affecting the lives of the people who live along the coast.

At a time when the sea ice should be growing toward its maximum extent for the year, it's shrinking instead—the area of the Bering Sea covered by ice is now 60 percent below its average from 1981-2010.

"[Bering sea ice] is in a league by itself at this point," said Richard Thoman, the climate science and services manager for the National Weather Service Alaska region. "And looking at the weather over the next week, this value isn't going to go up significantly. It's going to go down."

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The last two years were the Arctic's warmest on record as the region continued to warm at about twice the global average. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration noted in its annual Arctic Report Card in December that Arctic sea ice has been declining this century at rates not seen in at least 1,500 years. "It used to be just the summer when the ice was breaking low records, but we're starting to see winter really get into the act now," said Mark Serreze, the director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center. "Both the atmosphere and the ocean are really conspiring to keep sea ice levels down," he said.

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https://insideclimatenews.org/news/17022018/arctic-sea-ice-record-low-extent-alaska-bering-hunting-whales

[Bayard]

1. Scary......