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Almost All of the Ice Covering the Bering Sea Has Melted, Throwing Alaskan Communities into Disarray

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Almost all the ice covering the Bering Sea has melted, scientists have confirmed, throwing communities living around its shores into disarray.

The region’s ice cover normally persists for at least another month, and this year it has vanished earlier than any other year except 2017. . .

A report released by the International Arctic Research Centre at the University of Alaska Fairbanks has outlined the real-world effects of these stunning environmental changes on the many communities that inhabit the Bering Sea region.

“The low sea ice is already impacting the lives and livelihoods of people in western Alaska coastal communities by restricting hunting and fishing, which are the mainstays of the economies of these communities,” Dr Thoman told The Washington Post.

“Travel between communities via boat or snowmachine was difficult and limited due to thin, unstable sea ice,” the report said. (Read more from “Almost All of the Ice Covering the Bering Sea Has Melted, Throwing Alaskan Communities into Disarray” HERE)

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Prepping to fight Shell Oil production: Biologists commence study of Chukchi Sea life

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Photo credit: thomas toohey brown

A group of researchers has embarked on the first comprehensive study of marine life in the eastern Chukchi Sea near Alaska. Their findings will be used by the Department of the Interior to help decide whether to grant future leases for offshore oil exploration and drilling in the region, and to regulate transportation and future fishing.

“We are going up there to look at the oceanography, plankton, fish and crab in the region,” said Michael Sigler, a marine biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s fisheries service in Alaska.

Little baseline data has been collected in the region, which is currently little-trafficked and fished due to its remoteness and its ice-choked waters. As ice cover throughout the Arctic decreases, however, these pursuits are likely to increase.

Although surveys have been conducted in both the Beaufort and Chukchi seas since 1959, U.S. fishery research in the Arctic has been infrequent and limited in scope, according to a statement from NOAA. A similarly comprehensive survey of the northern Bering Sea was not conducted until 2010. [Images: Creatures of the Bering Sea]

The new study is primarily meant to gather data for scientists and to avoid negative impacts of oil exploration in the region, Sigler told OurAmazingPlanet. (Royal Dutch Shell has been granted a lease to drill exploratory wells in the area, and the company hopes to begin in the next few weeks, according to the Reuters news service.)

Read more from this story HERE.