Alaska's Bering Sea Lost a Third of Its Ice in Just 8 Days

Globally, sea ice is at record lows as the polar regions warm faster than the rest of the planet.  Along the Alaska coast, it's affecting people's lives.

In just eight days in mid-February, nearly a third of the sea ice covering the Bering Sea off Alaska's west coast disappeared.  That kind of ice loss and the changing climate as the planet warms is affecting the lives of the people who live along the coast.

At a time when the sea ice should be growing toward its maximum extent for the year, it's shrinking instead—the area of the Bering Sea covered by ice is now 60 percent below its average from 1981-2010.

"[Bering sea ice] is in a league by itself at this point," said Richard Thoman, the climate science and services manager for the National Weather Service Alaska region.  "And looking at the weather over the next week, this value isn't going to go up significantly. It's going to go down.

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