There’s almost more blue in the Canadian Ice Service “departure from normal” charts for this week than red, which means more sea ice than usual, especially in the eastern half of the bay and northern Labrador. Eventually, the melting ice will force polar bears ashore where they will fast for 4-5 months, living off the fat they’ve put on over the spring feeding season.
Comments Off on Hudson Bay sea ice update: more ice in the east than usual but less in the west
Posted in Life History, Sea ice habitat
Tagged breakup, Canadian Ice Service, Hudson Bay, polar bear, sea ice, western hudson bay
Following up on my previous post, it appears sea ice conditions on Hudson Bay this year might be headed for a late breakup due to the dominance of thick first year ice. That would mean a relatively longer on-ice season for polar bears in Western and Southern Hudson Bay.
As of the 1st week in May 2018, most of Hudson Bay, Foxe Basin and Hudson Strait were covered with thick 1st year ice (dark green, >1.2 m thick):
Compare that to the 1st week of May 2016, which had much less thick first year ice than 2018 and more medium first year ice (70-120cm, bright green):
To update the situation, at the end of May this year (week of 28 May), thick first year ice covered even more of the bay with a large patch of open water in the NW corner:
Thick first year ice does not melt as quickly as medium or thin first year ice (lime green) under most conditions, so the amount of thick first year ice present in May strongly affects the rate of breakup of the ice over the summer (temperature and wind also contribute). Here are some charts of ice melt sequences from the past (2016 and a couple others) that give a hint at what might be in store for Hudson Bay polar bears this year.
Comments Off on Does thick first year ice on Hudson Bay mean a late date ashore for WH polar bears in 2018?
Posted in Life History, Sea ice habitat
Tagged breakup, Canadian Ice Service, Hudson Bay, polar bear, sea ice, temperature, thickness, western hudson bay, wind
The Canadian Ice Service has a cool NASA animated video showing the Beaufort Gyre in action – you can actually see the solid mass of ice crack and swirl west and north under the pressure of the massive corkscrew current – see original here (tips on getting yourself oriented in the video below the screencap) and view below, for Apri 4- May 3, 2016:
Note that the video is oriented with Banks Island on the bottom and the shore of Alaska along the left-hand side, as if the locator map provided was rotated as below:
The big ‘bite” of ice being torn out to the south of Banks Island is the Amundsen Gulf.
The caption for the NASA video says this (my bold):
“MODIS Terra imagery taken between April 4 and May 3, 2016 of the Beaufort Sea. The animation highlights the gradual ice breakup due to the Beaufort gyre.”
So, early breakup here is due to Beaufort Gyre action – not early seasonal melt.
Continue reading
Comments Off on Beaufort Sea fractured ice due to strong Beaufort Gyre action – not early melt
Posted in Life History, Sea ice habitat
Tagged Amundsen Gulf, Arctic, Banks Island, Beaufort Gyre, Beaufort Sea, Canadian Ice Service, circulation, facts, ice thickness, NASA, polynya, sea ice, spring, video
The region inhabited by the Davis Strait subpopulation of polar bears dips as far south as James Bay and has a history of highly variable sea ice coverage.
For the last two years Davis Strait sea ice in March has been well above average, while other years it been well below. You might be surprised to hear that 1969 had the lowest February/March ice coverage over the entire the 1969-2002 record (Johnston et al. 2005: 211), which ice charts show now extend to 2015 (see below). Reports of sealers working north of Newfoundland and in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in the first few decades of the 20th century show this variability has likely always been a characteristic of the area (Ryan 2014).
Remarkably, this year’s ice coverage for the first week in January is well above what they were in 2014 and 2015 – even though those two years were above average by March. In fact, there hasn’t been this much polar bear habitat in the Southern Labrador Sea in the first week of January since at least 1993.
Continue reading
Comments Off on Davis Strait polar bear habitat well above average for the first week of winter
Posted in Life History, Sea ice habitat
Tagged Atlantic Canada, Canadian Ice Service, Davis Strait, East Coast, facts, James Bay, Labrador Sea, polar bear, sea ice, sealers, variability, winter
EATEN – my new polar bear attack novel – is set in Newfoundland 2025 for a reason. I wondered: what if sea ice coverage 10 years from now is as high or higher than it has been for the last two years, with inevitable positive effects on Davis Strait harp seal and polar bear populations?
The Canadian Ice Service prediction for this region, released earlier this week (1 December 2015, see references for link), is that 2016 is set to meet my “what-if” scenario handily. Nine years to go! See the CIS expected ice coverage for 19 February 2016 below (CIS fig. 3):
How does the above ice map compare to the last two years? At least as high or higher. Have a look below.
Comments Off on Spring sea ice prediction for next year off Newfoundland: extensive ice coverage
Posted in Conservation Status, Life History, Polar bear attacks, Sea ice habitat
Tagged Canadian Ice Service, Crockford, Davis Strait, Eaten, Gulf of St. Lawrence, harp seals, Labrador, March, Newfoundland, novel, polar bear, polar bear attacks, predictions, spring, swimming polar bears, what if
There may not be ice for Western Hudson Bay polar bears to walk on yet but there is still more ice forming along the northwest shore of the bay than last year at this time or even the year before. The Canadian Ice Service (CIS) map for 5 November shows this early formation.
What’s present is mostly grey ice defined by CIS as:
“Young ice 10-15 cm thick, less elastic than nilas [a kind of new ice] and breaks on swell. It usually rafts under pressure.”
Polar bears generally need ice about 30 cm thick to support their weight, which could take a day or two – or a week or two, depending on the weather in northwestern Hudson Bay. For Churchill, along the central coast of western Hudson Bay, ice thick enough for walking will not likely be far behind, given the long-range forecast of freezing weather. In recent years, most Churchill polar bears have left the ice by around 20 November. More maps and graphs for this week below.
Continue reading
Comments Off on Hudson Bay freeze-up moving faster than recent years, WHB polar bear habitat imminent
Posted in Sea ice habitat
Tagged Canadian Ice Service, Churchill, freeze-up, habitat, Hudson Bay, polar bear, sea ice
More than half of Southern Hudson Bay polar bears under study are still out on the thick Hudson Bay sea ice that’s been giving Canadian Coast Guard icebreakers so much trouble.
James Bay polar bear female and her cub on shore. Courtesy Ministry of Natural Resources, News Ontario, June 2, 2009.
As I pointed out a few days ago, most of the ice remaining on Hudson Bay is in the region used by Southern Hudson Bay polar bears. While you wouldn’t know it from the Polar Bears International “Bear Tracker” – which hasn’t been updated since 2 July – on Friday (24 July 2015) Ontario polar bear researcher Martyn Obbard used the PBI website to reveal where his study sample of polar bears are located.
Obbard posted a little essay on PBI’s “Save our sea ice!” website which had, buried near the end, the admission that on 20 July, five out of his nine Southern Hudson Bay females with satellite radio collars were still out on the ice, “far from the Ontario coast.”
Continue reading
Comments Off on Researcher says most S. Hudson Bay polar bears still on the ice, may have to swim home
Posted in Life History, Sea ice habitat
Tagged Bear Tracker, Belcher Islands, Canadian Ice Service, Coast Guard, Hudson Bay, icebreaker, James Bay, long swim, Martyn Obbard, polar bear, Polar Bears International, science, sea ice, thick sea ice
Preferred polar bear habitat is said to be 50% concentration or higher over continental shelves, which describes all but the fringes of sea ice extent today, including Hudson Bay, the Southern Beaufort, and the Barents Sea.
However, polar bears – excellent swimmers that they are – are quite capable of utilizing areas with 15-50% sea ice concentration if necessary (Durner et al. 2004; Rode et al. 2014:79), especially when prey are plentiful. This would account for the fact that there are still sightings of polar bears in and around northern Newfoundland (see previous post here and photo below1), where ice concentration is in the 30-50% range.
Photo with this news story (7 May 2015): “(Update) Polar bear sighting in Croque”
Comments Off on Polar bear habitat update – sea ice for hunting plentiful in all subpopulation regions
Posted in Life History, Sea ice habitat
Tagged Barents Sea, Beaufort Sea, Canadian Ice Service, Davis Strait, harp seal, hunting, Labrador, Newfoundland, NSIDC, polar bear, preferred habitat, sea ice, sea ice concentration, spring ice conditions
Arctic ice extent (at 14.1mkm2) on 15 April, was virtually identical to 2014 on that date, and higher than 2006. But the record goes to Davis Strait, which recorded the highest ice extent since 1971 for the week of April 16, while the waters of Eastern Newfoundland to the south (where most harp seals have their pups) had the third highest ice extent since 1969. Lots of fat baby seals are just what polar bears need at this time of year.
Comments Off on Spring ice alarm deflated – 2015 ice now as high as 2014 & Davis Strait highest since 1971
Posted in Life History, Sea ice habitat
Tagged Barents Sea, Canadian Ice Service, Davis Strait, harp seal, Newfoundland, NSIDC, polar bear, sea ice, seals, spring sea ice
Sea ice in eastern Hudson Bay (bright white in the map below) is more concentrated than at this time last year and similar to the ice found in the Central Canadian Arctic.
There is more concentrated ice (10/10 concentration) in the east side of the Bay than there was in 1992, a heavy ice year blamed in part on the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo (Chambellant et al. 2012) that resulted in the latest breakup date for Western Hudson Bay since 1991.
Comments Off on Polar bear habitat update: highly concentrated ice in eastern Hudson Bay this spring
Posted in Sea ice habitat
Tagged average breakup date, breakup, Canadian Ice Service, concentration, eastern Hudson Bay, habitat, Hudson Bay, Mt. Pinatubo, sea ice, spring ice conditions, western hudson bay
You must be logged in to post a comment.