June 20th definitely felt likesummer in Churchill this year when the temperature hit 75 °F (24 °C) and stretched far above “normal.” What this will mean for the rapidly melting ice in Hudson Bay is hard to say, but the ice cover as of June 18th was clearly 10% below recorded coverage between 1981 and 2010.
Here’s hoping for a chilly northern summer, but eastern Canada and the U.S. are sweltering in a heat wave. While it’s not that warm in Churchill, the summer so far is off to a warm start. It’s a fair bet that polar bears would rather stay at work through the summer – hunting and eating seals is what they’re designed to do.
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Guest post by Andrew E. Derocher of Polar Bears International. Read more from Andrew here.
