On August 1, Greenland lost more than 12 billion tons of ice in a single day. Due to a heatwave the struck Greenland last week, Greenland ice sheet lossed of 197 Gigatonnes in July alone is enough to raise sea levels by half a millimeter.
Alaska is also on the front lines of climate change where July 2019 set a record for the state’s hottest month on record. Scorching temperatures illustrate that not only, are humans, for better or worse, making history but because sea ice in the Arctic is critical to life, we are witnesses to the first visible signs of a collapsing arctic ecosystem including gray whale, ice seal, salmon and reindeer die-offs.
Temperature also impacts arctic marine habitat through melting sea-ice. According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, the July heat wave in Alaska contributed to continued melting of Arctic sea ice which reached a record low in July. According to the NSIDC, since 1979, September sea ice extent has declined 12.8 percent per decade.
Sea ice is critical to Pacific walruses who use it for resting between the search for food and for rearing their young. The Unprecedented loss of ice in the Chukchi Sea, this summer, however, once again, forced Pacific walrus to congregate on Alaska’s ice free northwestern coastlines and away from the important off-shore food-foraging areas.
While walrus, sometimes congregating in the tens of thousands, they have been hauling out on the beach at Point Lay, Alaska almost every year since 2007, due to the disappearance of their usual sea ice habitat. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, thousands of walruses hauled out on the beach in late July – the earliest ever. The walrus congregations can number in the tens of thousands, with up to 40,000 animals estimated at a time.