SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 19TH:
First, the latest ice chart which includes data up through November 12th (last Saturday when we had our second day on the tundra buggy!) came out a few days ago. The ice charts that have the % of ice cover are updated every 7 days, so today will have new data but it takes a few days to process before it's published. I will post an update on Tuesday or so when it's available and then that will likely be when I do these weekly updates until the ice has totally formed over the bay.
As both Doug and I discussed at the Centre and we all witnessed firsthand, the ice really started to develop while we were up there. Ice cover for western HudsonBay jumped from 4% on November 5 (4 days before our arrival) to 18% last Saturday, the 12th. That's a 4.5 fold increase. I also put the average temperature during that week (highs and lows) in the blue bars for context. Remember, sea water freezes at 28 deg F or colder, and the colder it is, the more consistent the ice formation will be.
There's both good news and bad news on ice formation this year, as seen on the chart. The blue bars represent 2022 ice cover. There are three red lines: the 1971-1991 average ice cover by date, the 1991-2020 (the modern, long-term average) average and the most recent 2 decades of 2001-2021 average. You can see clearly that each, more modern average is less and less ice, later and later. So, while this year is about on target for the long term, modern average (1991-2020), and is ahead of the 2001-2021 average, it falls far behind the 'good old days' of the 1971-1991 average. It's pretty staggering to see that in the 1970s and 1980s there would have been 2-3 times more ice at this point in the season then. Certainly, most bears would be on the ice at this time or likely earlier in those decades.
Many were pleasantly surprised by how many bears we saw on Saturday, our second tundra tour but the reality is that while ice seems 'good' this year, it's still not enough yet. Doug sort of lowered the expectations I think so we'd be set up to be pleasantly surprised :-). The fact is, that at 18% ice cover, it's only enough for the more brave males to start testing it out (which we saw and was cool because you have to be there at just the right point in the ice-formation process to experience that). Obviously, much of that 18% is not stable enough to hunt on yet, where as in July when the ice is going out, you can have 5-10% ice cover and bears still on it because they are left over thick pieces from the winter.
Polar Bears International posts roughly weekly updates on where the satellite-collared polar bears are. You can see the last update (Saturday, Nov. 12) all bears (which are females remember, most with cub(s)) were still on shore:
I'm excited to see what the percentage of ice cover will be for today when it comes out this upcoming week. I put together a loop of the past 7 day ice maps to show the formation (and drifting) of the ice:
Here's a view from space from NASA's satellites of the bay today and we can see some good ice out 10 to 20 miles from shore.
For reference, last year was way behind all averages. Look at the ice chart from last fall below (the blue bars are the 2021 ice cover by date, the red line = 2001-2021 modern average). On November 12th there was only about 2-3% ice cover and by the 19th only about 4%. It took until November 30th last year to achieve the ice cover we had on November 12th!
My estimate for the latest November19th ice cover is that we'll be at about 30% to 35%. The average temperature the last 7 days was about 6 deg F in Churchill, which can produce about 2% ice cover per day. Of course it's more complicated and dynamic with winds, etc., but generally once we reach that 30% threshold we see significant bear movement onto the ice.
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