The only waterway connecting the Pacific Ocean to the Arctic Ocean is called the Bering Strait. It has actually been called the gateway to the Arctic. It is a remote passageway that at one point only extends 55 miles wide. The Bering Strait also separates the United States (Alaska) from Russia. In recent years, an increasingly warming Arctic has created concerns in the Bering Strait.
With reduction of sea ice, the Strait has become something more than a region teaming with wildlife. It has become a transportation vein for shipping. According to OceanConservancy.org,
...a luxury cruise ship was able to sail from the North Pacific to the Atlantic via the fabled Northwest Passage—a route that once defeated even the most intrepid explorers. The Crystal Serenity sailed from the Alaskan port of Seward through the Northwest Passage to New York City. While other cruise ships have made the transit, this is the first time a ship of this size—almost the length of three football fields—has made the passage.
Such shipping activity poses a threat to marine life in the region and is somewhat risky since there are limited Coast Guard or rescue services in that area. However, what caught my eye is the extremely low the sea ice in the Bering Strait this week.
The Copernicus Sentinel-3 satellite is part of a fleet of Earth-observing satellites in orbit to measure important features of the land and ocean. Launched in February 2016 and joined by Sentinel-3B in April 2018, this mission is revealing a multitude of changes to the Earth system. The image above tweeted by Zack Labe reveals very little sea ice in the Bering Strait as of early March 2019. As startling as this looks, it apparently happened last year too according to Yereth Rosen in ArcticToday.com. The winter ice extent maximum last march the lowest in over 150 years of record keeping. Rosen goes on to write about this year's situation,
since late January, the Bering Sea has lost two-thirds of its ice area, according to statistics from the National Snow and Ice Data Center. Waters are open across the entire sea, including in the Bering Strait that separates Alaska and Russia. In the middle of that narrow strait, ice that normally links Alaska’s Little Diomede Island to Russia’s Big Diomede Island through May was gone by the end of February.
Tribal leaders and scientists are baffled and concerned.
Rick Thoman is an climate expert with the Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. He tweeted the image below with the following ominous statement:
Bering Sea ice extent from @NSIDC data for March 04 is lower than the previously unprecedented Feb 2018 minimum & is only 24% of average. Current extent (but not distribution) of 178,000 km² is typical for May 30th. #akwx #Arctic #seaice @Climatologist49 @IARC_Alaska @KNOMnews
Thoman and other experts believe that a combination of above-normal air temperatures, warming waters and potent weather systems are to blame. Indigenous people of the region also are concerned about something else. They typically use available shorefast ice for ice fishing. The famous Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race even had to adjust is route because ice typically available on Norton Sound is not available.
Climate scientist Lars Kaleschke sums it up in his tweet on March 3rd, "There is something significant going on in the Bering Sea: a very low ice extent for the second year in a row." He also pointed out with the tweet below that for that day, a record for low sea ice extent was set.
