Pack Ice round Bear Island within the Barents Sea on 15 Might: final time was 2003

Reposted from Dr. Susan Crockford’s Polar Bear Science

Posted on Might 15, 2020 | Feedback Off on Nonetheless pack ice round Bear Island within the Barents Sea on 15 Might: final time was 2003

It’s very open drift ice (1-Four/10th focus) however nonetheless: Bear Island (Bjørnøya) within the southern Barents Sea was nonetheless surrounded by pack ice at 15 Might 2020. So far as I can inform from the Norwegian Ice Service archived ice charts, this hasn’t occurred since 2003.

And final week, the island was surrounded by heavy drift ice, which hadn’t occurred on eight Might since 1977.

Again in 2003, there have been no colored ice charts however the Four/10th ice round Bear Island within the south is obvious on this chart:

On eight Might – every week after my final submit on this subject – the NIS tweeted a picture of the ice round Bear Island with this remark added:

“Bjørnøya usually sees scattered sea ice in Might however the final time there was packed ice above Four/10ths was in 1993 and above 7/10ths in 1977.” [see image below]

Under is the ice chart for eight Might, with Bear Island surrounded by concentrated (9-10/10ths) very shut drift ice (pink): there has not been such very shut drift ice across the island on eight Might since 1977.

Oddly, nonetheless no stories of polar bears close to the climate station on Bear Island this yr nevertheless it appears unlikely there we none. Extra possible, the media has been preoccupied with pandemic information.

Additionally of word, on 12 Might sea ice reached Jan Mayen Island off East Greenland for the primary time since April 2004:

Under is the Denmark Strait ice chart for 12 Might, however sadly one of many grid strains is sort of utterly obscuring Jan Mayen Island (seems to be for deep inverted ‘V’ on high of it):