Senators to Launch Bipartisan Climate Caucus. Sens. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) and Chris Coons (D-Del.) are teaming up to form a bipartisan climate caucus in the Senate. The group, set for a formal rollout in the coming weeks and first reported by the Washington Examiner, would in some ways be a counterpart to the bipartisan House Climate Solutions Caucus, which grew to nearly 100 members in the previous Congress. E&E News

 

NOAA Fisheries Declares Unusual Mortality Event Due to Elevated Strandings of Ice Seals in the Arctic. NOAA is declaring an Unusual Mortality Event (UME) for bearded, ringed, and spotted seals in the Bering and Chukchi seas. From June 1, 2018 to present there have been reports of 282 dead seals, with 119 stranded seals in 2018 and 163 in 2019. The increase in ice seal mortality is nearly 5 times the average number of reported strandings, which is about 29 seals annually. Since June 1, 2018, there have been 85 bearded, 66 ringed, 40 spotted, and 91 unidentified stranded ice seals. NOAA Fisheries

 

Climate Change: Arctic Glaciers 'Shrinking by 300m Each Year.' Glaciers in the Arctic are shrinking by as much as 300m a year, a Scottish-based research team has found. The researchers from the Scottish Association for Marine Science near Oban used robot submarines to study glaciers in the west of the Svalbard archipelago in the Norwegian Arctic. SAMS scientists have been studying the area's glaciers for two decades. BBC News

 

Scientists Monitoring New Marine Heat Wave Off BC Coast Similar to 'the Blob.' A new marine heat wave spreading across a portion of the Pacific Ocean off the coast of British Columbia has so far grown into one of the largest of its kind in the last four decades, officials say, second only to the infamous "blob" that disrupted marine life five years ago. The swath of unusually warm water stretches roughly from Alaska down to California, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in the United States. The marine phenomenon began in the Gulf of Alaska sometime around June 15 and ballooned over the summer. CBC News

 

Inuvialuit Knowledge Helps Mariners Choose Wildlife-Friendly Routes in Western Arctic. Mariners travelling through waters in Canada's Western Arctic have a new tool to help them mitigate impacts to wildlife and Inuit harvesting areas. The Inuvialuit Game Council, which represents Inuvialuit interests related to wildlife in the Inuvialuit Settlement Region, and WWF-Canada developed the Western Arctic Mariner's Guide. Arctic shipping is expected to double over the next decade, mainly with vessels related to tourism and mining, according to WWF-Canada.  CBC News

Ohio State Students Embark on Arctic Research Expedition. Two Ohio State graduate students are taking a polar plunge by way of a research expedition to the Arctic in light of changes in sea ice and climate. Oguz Demir and Brandi Downs, doctoral students in electrical and computer engineering, will deploy an ultra-wideband microwave radiometer in the Arctic to measure radiation emitted from sea ice to contribute data for climate change models in September. The Lantern

 

Oases Have Appeared in Arctic from Permafrost Thawing. Bio-Geo-Clim laboratory scientists are studying basins of dried-up khasyrei lakes as oases of highly productive ecosystems in the Arctic zone of Russia. During a recent expedition to Yamal, they discovered a new phenomenon: similar oases are also forming in places of active permafrost [thawing]. This was caused by large doses of micro- and macro-elements entering the soil, which stimulates the active growth of herbs and shrubs. Mirage News

Starvation a Likely Cause of the 2019 Seabird Die-Off. Starvation seems to be the cause of the large-scale seabird die-off happening this year across Alaska. These types of mortality events have happened every year in the state since 2015. Scientists with the National Park Service (NPS) and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) are tracking the ongoing die-off and are asking for the public's help. "From late June to early August, thousands of short-tailed shearwaters were reported dead and washing up on beaches in the Bristol Bay region, or observed weak and attempting to feed from salmon gillnets in inland waters," NPS wrote in a release on Sept. 9. The Arctic Sounder