Scientists warn of more polar bear attacks as Arctic sea ice disappears – ‘These kinds of events are going to be more frequent and more severe because of climate change’

By Lindsay Abrams11 November 2013 (Salon) – What happens when polar bears in a warming Arctic start losing their natural source of food? Increasingly, the starving bears are leaving their (melting) ice floes and making their way onto land in search of something to eat — leading to dangerous encounters with humans. In the northern […]

With no sea ice to live on, 10,000 walrus come ashore in northwest Alaska

By DAN JOLING, Associated Press 1 October 2013 ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) – An estimated 10,000 walrus unable to find sea ice over shallow Arctic Ocean water have come ashore on Alaska’s northwest coast. Scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on Friday photographed walrus packed onto a beach on a barrier island near Point […]

Graph of the Day: Comparison of observed and simulated climate change based on three large-scale indicators in the atmosphere, the cryosphere, and the ocean

27 September 2013 (IPCC) – [This graph shows a] comparison of observed and simulated climate change based on three large-scale indicators in the atmosphere, the cryosphere and the ocean: change in continental land surface air temperatures (yellow panels), Arctic and Antarctic September sea ice extent (white panels), and upper ocean heat content in the major […]

The Economist: Global warming is still our fault

STOCKHOLM, 27 September 2013 (The Economist) – It has been a long time coming. But then the fifth assessment of the state of the global climate by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a United Nations body, was a behemoth of an undertaking. It runs to thousands of pages, involved hundreds of scientists and […]

Video: Canadian expedition spotlights thinning Arctic sea ice – ‘There’s still ice up there, but there’s far less ice than there was before’

NEW YORK, 28 September 2013 (CBS News) – From afar, we watched this summer as four Vancouver-based men launched their custom-made, kevlar-coated, wood and fiberglass row boat, the Arctic Joule, from Canada’s Northwest territory in early July, heading east, toward Greenland. The rowers — Kevin Vallely and Frank Wolf, from Canada, with Denis Barnett and […]

Quick summary of new IPCC climate report: By 2100, Earth warms 4°C, sea level rises 28-98 cm, dry areas become drier, wet areas become wetter, summer Arctic sea ice disappears

  By Stefan Rahmstorf27 September 2013 (RealClimate) – The time has come: the new IPCC report is here! After several years of work by over 800 scientists from around the world, and after days of extensive discussion at the IPCC plenary meeting in Stockholm, the Summary for Policymakers was formally adopted at 5 o’clock this […]

Arctic on course for ice-free summer ‘within decades’, scientists say – ‘There is very little thick multi-year ice left covering these great areas’

By Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent  20 September 2013 (theguardian.com) – The Arctic is on course for an ice-free summer within the next few decades, as scientists on Friday declared that sea ice in the region had fallen to one of the lowest annual minimums on record. On 13 September, the expanse of frozen water […]

Graph of the Day: Harp seal strandings and sea ice decline, 1991-2010

ABSTRACT: The effects of climate change on high latitude regions are becoming increasingly evident, particularly in the rapid decline of sea ice cover in the Arctic. Many high latitude species dependent on sea ice are being forced to adapt to changing habitats. Harp seals (Pagophilus groenlandicus) are an indicator species for changing high-latitude ecosystems. This […]

Climate change killing harp seal pups as sea ice habitat melts away

By Alexander Holmgren 20 August 2013 (mongabay.com) – As sea ice levels continue to decline in the northern hemisphere, scientists are observing an unsettling trend in harp seal young mortalities regardless of juvenile fitness. While a recent study found that in harp seal breeding regions ice cover decreased by up to 6% a decade from […]

Starved polar bear perished due to record sea-ice melt, says expert – ‘He had no external suggestion of any remaining fat, having been reduced to little more than skin and bone’

By Damian Carrington    6 August 2013 (The Guardian) – A starved polar bear found found dead in Svalbard as “little more than skin and bones” perished due to a lack of sea ice on which to hunt seals, according to a renowned polar bear expert. Climate change has reduced sea ice in the Arctic to […]

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