700 Walrus Seen Near Shell Oil Rigs in Arctic as Obama Visits Alaska

Thousands of Pacific walrus are coming ashore on the northwest Arctic coast of Alaska, repeating a migratory change for the walrus which U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) scientists have called a clear effect of loss of Arctic Ocean sea ice on which the animals rely. As the walrus swim south from the preferred but now ice-free feeding ground, Hanna Shoal in the Chukchi Sea, many are passing close enough to the flotilla of Shell Oil ships on its drill site to be seen from the ships.
Kotzebue, AK, on edge of Arctic tundra wilderness, being visited by President Obama, this week. Photo credit: Gary Braasch / World View of Global Warming
James MacCracken, supervisory wildlife biologist, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said in an Aug. 28 press conference call, "We are getting reports from Shell daily” of walrus near the ships and rigs and the talley so far is "700 walrus" seen by observers. When asked if all operations around the walrus by Shell are within the guidelines set by Interior Department regulation, MacCracken said, “Yes.” This is the first confirmation that protected sea mammals are swimming through the Burger oil leases which Shell just got permission to deep drill. Observers, paid by Shell, are required by Shell’s permit to perform drilling and other activities which might disturb or injure sea mammals. More information to come on this.
First aerial views of thousands of Pacific walrus hauling out Aug. 23 on Alaska Arctic shore. Small detail of telephoto image of 2015 haul out. Photo credit: Gary Braasch / World View of Global Warming
The press conference was also the first direct acknowledgement by the U.S. agencies in charge of studying and protecting the mammals that a new haul out had begun—nearly a week after the event actually started and only three days before President Obama begins his tour of Alaska focusing on rapid climate change. Gary Braasch made the first photos of the haul out at about 7 p.m. on Aug. 23, after seeing on USGS maps of locations of geotagged walrus that several were stationary in the Point Lay area.
Thousands of Pacific walrus coming ashore in northwest Alaska as sea ice melts recedes from habitat. Photo credit: Gary Braasch / World View of Global Warming
Fish and Wildlife Service officials confirmed at the press conference that they had no photos of their own so far of the haul out and Point Lay village President Leo Ferreira III said no one had been to the beach yet by boat, as of Friday. The walrus are subject to spooking and stampede by disturbance, which can trample and kill babies and young. In past years more than 100 have been found dead at other haul outs, apparently from stampedes. Marine Mammal Protection Act limits on approaching sea mammals are strict for this reason and the village is cooperating fully with this protection, Ferreira said at the press conference.
Part of thousands of Pacific walrus coming ashore, Aug. 23, northwest Alaska Arctic Ocean beach. Photo credit: Gary Braasch / World View of Global Warming
Years of observations by scientists, mariners and natives document that until the sea ice began shrinking drastically in 2007, ice remained over shallow Chukchi sea areas where walrus spent the summers offshore. Walrus (Odobenus rosmarus divergens) have often left the water to rest on shore in many places across the Arctic shores of Russia and Alaska, but according to scientists it has most often been the males coming on land.
The recent huge mixed aggregations of the sea mammals, which grow up to 12-feet long and may weigh up to two tons with females about half that weight, pose danger to the young and smaller animals from crushing and the spread of disease. This danger is increased with longer times on land—which is why this year’s early haul out is significant, since in other haul out years the animals have stayed until late September. The herd then moves toward Russia.
Kotzebue, founded by natives on edge of tundra wilderness, modernizing with hospital, seawall. Photo credit: Gary Braasch / World View of Global Warming
The huge sea mammals and young began coming up on this barrier island along Kasegaluk Lagoon about Aug.20, according to local natives. This is one of the earliest known summer haul outs of the walrus along the Alaska coast of the Chukchi Sea, according to wildlife biologists. Walrus coming up on Arctic beaches rather than staying on sea ice has occurred increasingly as Arctic sea ice melts faster and retreats far to the north of walrus feeding areas.
According to USGS scientists, walrus, especially females with young, prefer to haul out and rest on remnant sea ice over shallow feeding areas about 100 miles off Alaska in the Chukchi Sea. That ice has disappeared in seven of the past nine years, forcing the animals and their young to swim southeast toward the beaches of Northwest Alaska or to the Arctic Russian coast, to haul out. In some years, more than 30,000 animals have been on Alaska beaches, with some loss of life due to crowding and crushing and disease.
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<p>Think of it as a game of Jenga and the planet's climate system as the tower. For generations, we have been slowly removing blocks. But at some point, we will remove a pivotal block, such as the collapse of one of the major global ocean circulation systems, for example the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), that will cause all or part of the global climate system to fall into a planetary emergency.</p><p>But worse still, it could cause runaway damage: Where the tipping points form a domino-like cascade, where breaching one triggers breaches of others, creating an unstoppable shift to a radically and swiftly changing climate.</p><p>One of the most concerning tipping points is mass methane release. Methane can be found in deep freeze storage within permafrost and at the bottom of the deepest oceans in the form of methane hydrates. But rising sea and air temperatures are beginning to thaw these stores of methane.</p><p>This would release a powerful greenhouse gas into the atmosphere, 30-times more potent than carbon dioxide as a global warming agent. This would drastically increase temperatures and rush us towards the breach of other tipping points.</p><p>This could include the acceleration of ice thaw on all three of the globe's large, land-based ice sheets – Greenland, West Antarctica and the Wilkes Basin in East Antarctica. The potential collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet is seen as a key tipping point, as its loss could eventually <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/324/5929/901" target="_blank">raise global sea levels by 3.3 meters</a> with important regional variations.</p><p>More than that, we would be on the irreversible path to full land-ice melt, causing sea levels to rise by up to 30 meters, roughly at the rate of two meters per century, or maybe faster. Just look at the raised beaches around the world, at the last high stand of global sea level, at the end of the Pleistocene period around 120,0000 years ago, to see the evidence of such a warm world, which was just 2°C warmer than the present day.</p>Cutting Off Circulation
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