Considerable Chukchi sea ice explains the earlier silence on walrus haulouts in Alaska and Russia – Watts Up With That?
From polar bear science
Posted on September 3, 2021
Sea ice was abundant in the Chukchi Sea this summer: so much so that herds of walrus did not find it necessary to use beaches on the Alaskan coast as resting places. Now, in early September, almost the entire northern Chukotka coast is covered with ice, blocking the use of the beaches that were traditionally used from September to November. Wrangel Island (a major polar bear sanctuary) is still almost surrounded by ice, which has not happened in decades.
Just two years ago it was very important that the entire coast of Alaska was ice-free in early August and herds of walrus came ashore at Point Lay earlier than any year since 2007 – all due to climate change. Last year, the walrus began to go ashore a day earlier than 2019, on July 29th. 2017), the haulouts are still portrayed as bad news and a harbinger of an impending disaster.
The inset map above shows the location of Point Lay, Alaska, where the Pacific walrus spreads during the ice-free season.
This year is a completely different story and of course the biologists are suddenly silent.
The sea ice in the Chukchi Sea this year on July 29, 2021 (below) shows that Point Lay was ice-free (as it has been for many years), but we haven’t heard about walrus dragons like in previous years.
On August 31, 2021 (below) there was not much less ice in the Chukchi Sea and still no trace of walrus during land transport in Alaska (Fischbach et al. 2016). Wrangel Island is still almost surrounded by ice, and ice covers much of the Chukotka coast on the mainland, including the famous cliff excavation at Cape Schmidt, which is the focus of my upcoming book on the deception in David Attenborough’s documentary Our Planet:
In 2019 there was practically no ice in the Chukchi Sea at the end of August:
In the graphic below you can see the flat area of the Chukchi (pale blue) for the 2nd.
The last time was ice around Wrangel Island in early September 2003, but it was just a speck:
It wasn’t until 2001 that so much Chukchi sea ice became routine at the end of August:
Just for comparison, below is the same table for 2021 from NSIDC:
References
Fischbach, AS, Kochnev, AA, Garlich-Miller, JL and Jay, curriculum vitae 2016. Coastal Shipping Database of Pacific Walruses, 1852-2016 – Background Report. USGS Open File Report 2016-1108. DOI: 10.3133 / ofr20161108 PDF HERE, download here.
MacCracken, JG, Beatty, WS, Garlich-Miller, JL, Kissling, ML and Snyder, JA 2017. Final assessment of the species status for the Pacific walrus (Odobenus rosmarus divergens), May 2017 (version 1.0). US Fish & Wildlife Service, Anchorage, AK. PDF here (8.6 MB).
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