Sea Ice and Walruses

Blog Follower Steph asked me to comment on this story from NBC regarding walruses and lack of ice in the Arctic.

The contention is that lack of ice is causing them to crowd together.

There is at least one misstatement of fact in the story and that is that the tundra in Point Lay, AK is completely frozen over in September. This is not true (believe it or not, I have been to Point Lay in September). It is not true father north at Barrow, either.

If we look at sea ice extent for 2010, we see that it was low but not as low as 2008 or 2007. The reporter says that something similar happened to the walruses last year, but ice was quite a bit higher then than in 2010. So, that causes me to question whether ice extent is truly the problem.
Temperatures were colder than normal in the Arctic melt season this year as indicated on the chart below (the red line is below the green line, the latter being the long term average temperature).
So, at least to me, the problem is not immediately obvious. Yes, it might be lack of ice because 2010 was certainly below normal. But, the lack of ice was not caused by colder than normal temperature and the ice extent in 2010 was greater than 2007 or 2008.

Sorry I don't have a more definitive answer.

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