Their findings revealed that the Southeast Greenland bears are cut off from sea ice two-thirds of the year, and supplement their hunting by utilizing freshwater ice slabs, which routinely break off from the Greenland Ice Sheet and coastal glaciers. The bears also traipse in between fjords by crossing inland ice and travelling over mountains.
” We knew there were some bears in the location from historical records and Indigenous understanding,” stated co-author Kristin Laidre, a polar researcher at the University of Washington. “We simply didnt know how special they were,” she said.
Revealed here is the Tingmiarmiut fjord within the habitat of the Southeast Greenland polar bear population, in early spring left. This image was collected by the Operational Land Imager-2 on Landsat 9 on April 6, 2022. Credit: NASAs Earth Observatory
Shown here is the Tingmiarmiut fjord within the habitat of the Southeast Greenland polar bear population, in summer. The white dots on the dark water are drifting glacial ice that has actually broken off of the main Heimdal glacier and other glaciers in the fjord, which the bears use instead of sea ice to hunt.
Southeast Greenlands sea ice looks like now what scientists expect ice conditions in Northeast Greenland will look like in the late 21st century due to climate modification. The authors warn that glacier ice cant provide habitat for lots of bears, because fairly few places drop large quantities of glacier ice into the ocean.
This research was moneyed by NASAs Biological Diversity and Ecological Forecasting and Cryospheric Sciences programs, the U.S. National Science Foundation, the government of Denmark; the federal government of Greenland; the University of Washington; the University of Oslo; the Leo Model Foundation and the Vetlesen Foundation.
This collaboration was necessary for supporting the groups interdisciplinary research study, said co-author and NSIDC Deputy Lead Scientist Twila Moon. “We view these cross-collaborations as crucial for addressing many pushing research obstacles associated with our rapidly changing world,” she adds.
Recommendation: “Glacial ice supports an undocumented and unique polar bear subpopulation continuing late 21st-century sea-ice conditions” by Kristin L. Laidre, Megan A. Supple, Erik W. Born, Eric V. Regehr, Øystein Wiig, Fernando Ugarte, Jon Aars, Rune Dietz, Christian Sonne, Peter Hegelund, Carl Isaksen, Geir B. Akse, Benjamin Cohen, Harry L. Stern, Twila Moon, Christopher Vollmers, Russ Corbett-Detig, David Paetkau and Beth Shapiro, 16 June 2022, Science.DOI: 10.1126/ science.abk2793.
A Southeast Greenland polar bear on glacier, or freshwater, ice at 61 degrees north in September 2016 taken during NASAs Oceans Melting Greenland field objective. Credit: NASA/Thomas W. Johansen
Greenlands fjords harbor an unique group of polar bears that count on glacial ice, a NASA-funded research study reported on June 16, 2022, in the journal Science.
Polar bears throughout the Arctic depend on sea ice as a platform for searching seals. As environment change warms the world and Arctic sea ice melts away, polar bears are struggling to discover ice to hunt on. In Southeast Greenland, nevertheless, scientists found that bears endure for most of the year in fjords by counting on ice assortments, a mix of sea ice and pieces of glacial ice that is carved off of marine-terminating glaciers. This population of polar bears has been separated for numerous a century from their Arctic counterparts, and they have been discovered to be genetically distinct.
The tan area reveals that Northeast Greenland polar bears travel across extensive sea ice to hunt. The purple location shows that Southeast Greenland polar bears have more restricted motions inside their home fjords or neighboring fjords.
A global team of scientists, including those from the University of Washington and the National Snow Ice and Data Center (NSIDC), tracked bears in Southeast Greenland for 7 years and integrated their new data with hereditary analysis and 3 years of historic information from Greenlands entire east coast. They likewise utilized the Moderate Resolution Imagine Spectroradiometer instruments (MODIS) aboard NASAs Terra and Aqua satellites and NSIDC information to record the fjord and offshore sea ice environment.
As climate modification warms the world and Arctic sea ice melts away, polar bears are struggling to find ice to hunt on. In Southeast Greenland, nevertheless, researchers discovered that bears make it through for most of the year in fjords by relying on ice melanges, a mix of sea ice and pieces of glacial ice that is carved off of marine-terminating glaciers. The white dots on the dark water are drifting glacial ice that has actually broken off of the central Heimdal glacier and other glaciers in the fjord, which the bears utilize instead of sea ice to hunt. Southeast Greenlands sea ice resembles now what scientists expect ice conditions in Northeast Greenland will look like in the late 21st century due to environment change. The authors warn that glacier ice cant offer environment for lots of bears, because relatively few places drop large quantities of glacier ice into the ocean.
