An estimated 10,000 walrus were unable to find sea ice and have come ashore on a barrier island near Point Lay, an Inupiat Eskimo village 300 miles southwest of Barrow and 700 miles northwest of Anchorage.
As we all know the IPCC came out with the first of a series of volumes constituting its fifth assessment of climate change. Doesn't look good.
It concluded that “over the
past three decades, Arctic summer sea ice retreat was unprecedented,” and that “[a]nthropogenic influences have very likely contributed to Arctic sea ice loss since 1979.” The IPCC also warned that “[i]t is very likely that the Arctic sea ice cover will continue to shrink and thin.
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That same day, on the other side of the Arctic, federally funded observers aboard an aircraft photographed an estimated 10,000 walruses hauled out on land along Alaska’s north coast. The walruses were forced ashore by the disappearance of Artic sea ice over their preferred feeding areas. The observers were on a regularly scheduled flight of the U.S. Aerial Surveys of Arctic Marine Mammals (ASAMM) Project, funded by the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and conducted by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) (see NOAA Scientists Document New Walrus Haulout in Alaskan Arctic and NOAA’s Aerial Surveys of Arctic Marine Mammals Photograph Walrus Haulout Site – Scientists Call Behavior New Phenomenon. The photos were posted on 30 September in a report on the flight
Please click this link to see a picture of the walrus near Point Lay. It is truly frightening.
http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/...
Our federal agency employees ability track and research climate change and weather are now furloughed due to the government shutdown by the Republican party. This means atmospheric research conducted not just at NOAA, but also at NASA, EPA, the Department of Energy and Department of Interior and others has stopped.
“A staggering 97 percent of NASA employees have been furloughed“, writes Phil Plait at the Bad Astronomy blog.
“The EPA is taking one of the biggest hits of any federal agency — about 96 percent of the agency’s staff aren’t coming to work,” notes Katie Valentine at Climate Progress.
These Tea Party types are going to end up killing all of us. Remember this from George W. Bush after leaving his final G8 meeting. He said this to Sarkozy and G. Brown. "Goodbye from the world's biggest polluter," . Forgive them as they know not what they do and I am referring to the really crazy Republican officeholders. The "moderates" are just cowards and/or beholden to the fossil fuel industry.