Lack of sea ice has forced hundreds of walrus to scale cliffs where they then plunge to their death.

With climate change, we can expect the unexpected when it comes to localized and regional impacts. And in the far north, climate change is warming the region twice the rate as temperate zones causing the ecosystem into extreme stress.

Sea ice minimum for winter of 2019 is the seventh lowest on record. Today only twenty percent of new sea ice survives in Russia when it leaves the “nursery,” the rest melts.

From the Weather Channel.

Considered the "nursery" of Arctic sea ice, Russia's shallow marginal seas — the Barents Sea, Kara Sea, Laptev Sea, and the East Siberian Sea — consistently produce new sea ice during the winter because of the extremely low temperatures that can drop to minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit.

A strong offshore wind propels the newly formed ice toward the central Arctic Ocean where it is carried off by the Transpolar Drift. In two to three years, the ice eventually makes its way to and out of the Fram Strait, where it typically melts. Today, only about 20 percent of the ice floes make it through the entire journey.

Thanks to a new series on Netflix, distressing footage of walrus plunging from sea cliffs was captured for the first time in the Russian Arctic by a crew filming Our Planet, the new natural history series narrated by Sir David Attenborough. Attenborough's series is not just any nature program, he is pulling zero punches when he weaves hothouse earth into his film locations with a visual assault on the senses from an ever-changing climate and biosphere. 

London’s Sunday Times (has a paywall)  describes how “Two-tonne mountains of blubber and tusk may not be as iconic as polar bears, but the horrific deaths of hundreds of walruses could make these “Arctic refugees” the grim new symbol of climate change.”

Daily Mail has the story.

The David Attenborough-narrated series shows a shocking look at walruses who have become confused by a combination of shrinking ice cover and their own poor eyesight, causing them to scale cliffs and often plummet to their deaths when they attempt to return to the sea.

The falling bodies of blubber and tusks can also crush walrus on the beach while possibly triggering a stampede.

All they know, Attenborough says, is that they need to join the other walruses and find food.

‘A walrus’ eyesight out of water is poor,’ Attenborough says.

‘But they can sense the others down below. As they get hungry, they need to return to the sea.

‘In their desperation to do so, hundreds fall from heights they should never have scaled.’

Walruses are among the top Arctic species feeling the effects of climate change as they rely heavily on sea ice to rest between hunts.

Walruses can be seen perched precariously on the edge of the rocky cliffs, unaware of just how high up they are. They then fall below, amid bodies and other living walruses

Attenburg notes that walrus are suffering from a changing climate that is melting the sea ice. The sea ice is critical for walrus as they use the ice edges to mate, they give birth on the sea ice, and the massive animals depend on sea ice for protection against predators and rough seas.

In another worrisome sign, because they strand themselves on beaches by the tens of thousands, they can be spooked into a stampede by a starving polar bear, a nearby orca, or by human activity such as noise from fishing vessels and airplanes.

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