Chukot-TINRO

Tens of thousands of walruses make their home in Beringia, including these seen last fall at Cape Serdtse-Kamen in Chukotka, Russia.

You might have missed it, but the ancient land of Beringia has gotten some extra protection from superpowers Russia and the United States. 

That's right, Beringia -- 2,800 miles stretching from Siberia, across the Bering and Chukchi seas, through Alaska and into Canada's British Columbia. For thousands of years, Beringia even had a 1,000-mile-long land bridge that emerged when sea level dropped.

OK, so it's not an actual nation, but Beringia does have its own heritage of people divided by borders but united culturally -- and a natural kingdom of whales, polar bears, walruses and seals.

 "From the diversity of its Arctic wildlife, both on land and within its waters, to the bounty it provides that sustains cultures on both sides of the U.S.-Russian border, Beringia is home to a kingdom of wildlife and cultural riches, deserving of protection in perpetuity," Cristian Samper, president of the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society, told NBC News.

"This announcement," he added, "brings us one step closer to that reality."

Samper was talking about a meeting between Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her Russian peer earlier this month, where both nations agreed to work toward "a transboundary area of shared Beringian heritage" by 2013. 

National Park Service

That designation would create closer ties between two U.S. national parks -- the Bering Land Bridge Natural Preserve and the Cape Krusenstern National Monument -- with Russia's soon-to-be-designated Beringia National Park.

"Park managers and researchers from both countries will be able to increase their efforts to conserve this unique ecosystem as well as the cultural traditions and languages of the indigenous people on both sides of the (Bering) strait," Clinton said at the meeting on Sept. 8.

Even before the announcement, the U.S. National Park Service has had a program since the 1990s to promote Beringia, a term first coined in 1937.

Bob Gerhard / National Park Service

Anadyr, the capital of Russia's Chukotka Autonomous Region, is part of Beringia and faces the Bering Sea.

"As one of the world's great ancient crossroads, Beringia may hold solutions to puzzles about who were the first people to populate North America, how and when they traveled, and how they survived under such harsh climatic conditions," a website dedicated to Beringia reads.

The park service program stems from a 1990 announcement by then President George H. W. Bush and Soviet President Mikhael Gorbachev to establish an international park spanning the Bering Strait. 

A full-fledged international park never came about, in part because of suspicions by native groups. But the new, smaller approach is aimed at easing those concerns.

Vic Knox / National Park Service

Native festivals like this one are typical in Anadyr, a city in Russia's autonomous region of Chukotka that is part of the wider region known as Beringia.

The Wildlife Conservation Society is among the environmental groups excited about stronger cross-border ties. It already has a "Beringia Program" that looks at:

• How shipping in formerly ice-covered seas will affect marine life and indigenous people who rely on that for food.
• The threat walruses face from shrinking sea ice, which they rely on to rest while at sea. Less sea ice has led to overcrowding and even walruses crushed to death as they "haul out" by the thousands to rest on beaches.
• The impacts of human development on birds from around the world that nest and breed in the Arctic tundra.

Chukot-TINRO

Scientists are seeing more of these massive "haul outs" by walruses. These were seen last fall on Russia's Cape Serdtse-Kamen, part of the larger Beringia region.

The organization's "Beringia Program" manager sees the U.S.-Russia effort as keeping recent momentum moving forward. Both native peoples and wildlife, Martin Robards told NBC News, face living "in a region warming at twice the global average, while at the same time, adjusting to a rapid influx of new development interests."

As for the variety of wildlife, "it's phenomenal," Robards said. "In the fall and spring animals come through the Bering Strait -- whales, polar bears, walruses and seals."

That wealth makes it easy for Robards to spend his time on Beringia. But getting its importance across to others can be problematic, so having two superpowers raise Beringia's profile is a big plus.

"It does need explaining at times," he admits.

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New sea ice is finally starting to form again in the Arctic, scientists reported Wednesday, but not before reaching another record low last Sunday. 

"We are now in uncharted territory," Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center, said in a statement announcing the record low of 1.32 million square miles -- nearly half the average extent from 1979 to 2010. The extent has been tracked by satellite since 1979.

"While we’ve long known that as the planet warms up, changes would be seen first and be most pronounced in the Arctic," he added, "few of us were prepared for how rapidly the changes would actually occur."

Many experts expect the Arctic to be free of sea ice in summer at some point between 2015 and 2050.

"Recent climate models suggest that ice-free conditions may happen before 2050," noted center scientist Julienne Stroeve. But she added the caveat that the recent sudden rate of decline "remains faster than many of the models are able to capture."

Serreze told NBC News he's figuring on 2030, calling it "a pretty aggressive estimate."

The sea ice extent numbers come after the center reported last month that the summer sea ice on Aug. 26 had broken the previous record low set in 2007 of 1.61 million square miles. On Aug. 26 the sea ice extent was 1.58 million square miles, it said.

"We're smashing a record that smashed a record," center scientist Walt Meier said.

In the 1980s, he said, summer sea ice would cover an area a bit smaller than the Lower 48 states. Now it is about half that.

The difference between this year's low and that of 2007 is 293,000 square miles, about the size of Texas, the center noted in its report.

Meanwhile, conditions favorable to new sea ice are taking longer to appear.

"The strong late season decline is indicative of how thin the ice cover is," Meier said. "Ice has to be quite thin to continue melting away as the sun goes down and fall approaches."

The thickness of the ice is also in decline.

"The core of the ice cap is the perennial ice, which normally survived the summer because it was so thick", Joey Comiso, a NASA scientist who uses satellites to study the ice, said in a statement. "But because it's been thinning year after year, it has now become vulnerable to melt."

Related: China eyes mineral treasure in warming Arctic
Related: Starving female polar bear challenges male in warming sign

NASA also noted that a strong August storm that formed off Alaska's coast and moved to the center of the Arctic Ocean had an impact on ice levels.

"The storm definitely seems to have played a role in this year's unusually large retreat of the ice", said NASA scientist Claire Parkinson. "But that exact same storm, had it occurred decades ago when the ice was thicker and more extensive, likely wouldn't have had as prominent an impact, because the ice wasn't as vulnerable then as it is now."

This year follows several of declining summer sea ice.

"The six lowest September ice extents have all been in the past six years," Serreze said. "I think that's quite remarkable." 

The experts also noted that what happens in the Arctic doesn't stay there.

The warmer Arctic is adding increased heat and moisture into the climate system, said center scientist Ted Scambos. "This will gradually affect climate in the areas where we live," he said. "We have a less polar pole -- and so there will be more variations and extremes."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Wildlife biologist Ian Bullock is a seasoned visitor to the Arctic, but even he was surprised by what he saw last month: a thin female polar bear, shadowed by her cub, trying to challenge a much bigger, stronger male for food.

It wasn't much of a challenge, but it showed just how desperate she was, Bullock told NBC News on returning from his 10th straight summer cruise to the Arctic.

That desperation, he feels, stems from the fact that the Arctic's summer sea ice — which polar bears using as floating stations from which to hunt seals — has been shrinking over the last few decades due to a warming Arctic, forcing polar bears into smaller areas and more intense competition. 

"She was the thinnest female with cub I have ever seen," he said. "She had a single cub which implies she has already lost one other cub this year.

"If she cannot feed, she cannot suckle her cub; with a hungry cub it is even harder for her to hunt effectively, so from what I saw her last cub is at risk and ultimately so is she," he added. "This is why she was challenging a big male with food. She was hungry enough to take a big risk." 

In a video filmed during the National Geographic Explorer cruise to the Arctic's Svalbard region, Bullock said it looks like that reduced ice is "really putting the bears under stress."

"The worst thing is when we've encountered bears, we've found them really packed in tight, in the last little areas of fast ice attached to land, or the last little patches of pack ice at sea," said Bullock, who served as a guide on the cruise ship. "And there they've been in competition."

Polar bears are listed as "vulnerable" and in decline by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, which estimates the population at no more than 25,000 across the Arctic.

The U.S., which has two Arctic regions where polar bears live, in 2008 listed its population as "threatened".

Last year, researchers cited three incidents where polar bears might even have resorted to cannibalism due to warming and reduced sea ice.

The diminished sea ice also got the attention of the National Geographic Explorer's skipper.

Captain Leif Skog told NBC News that he had e-mailed his boss, Sven Lindblad of Lindblad Expeditions, to describe "a shocking escalation of the reduction of sea ice."

One data graph he monitored daily, showing the total volume of Arctic sea ice, "could be called the death spiral of the Arctic sea ice," he said in his e-mail to Lindblad.

Because of the reduced sea ice, he added, the cruise was able to visit northeast Greenland "a month earlier than what was normal in the past."

"We expected to face some sea ice but everything was gone in the fjords upon our arrival," he added. "The sea water temperature in the fjords was also unbelievably high."

Another expert on the cruise called the outside temperature "surprisingly warm." 

"It was T-shirt weather," Paul Berkman, an environmental science professor at the University of California Santa Barbara, told NBC News. Berkman noted two other major Arctic developments over the summer:

• The amount of summer sea ice reached its lowest point in 30 years of records.
• Nearly the entire surface of Greenland's ice cap saw some melting in July, a phenomenon not seen in 150 years of ice records.

Berkman said the polar regions, and the Arctic in particular, show an "amplified response" to a warming climate ahead of other parts of the globe.

That response is twofold, he adds: Arctic temperatures have warmed 3-6 degrees F above the global average, and reduced ice removes huge amounts of reflective white from the sea and reveals a dark sea that absorbs heat.

The sea ice is like "a giant mirror on Earth's surface" he said. "Without summer Arctic sea ice, more heat from the sun is absorbed into the Earth system, which is a feedback that further accelerates warming of our climate."

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The amount of summer sea ice in the Arctic has reached a record low in three decades of satellite data, scientists reported Tuesday, with one of them describing recent warm years there as creating a "less polar pole." The decline was expected to continue for at least several more days before cold weather sets in and creates new ice through fall and winter.

The area of Arctic waters covered by sea ice was measured at 1.58 million square miles on Sunday, the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) reported. That's below the previous record low of 1.61 million square miles set on Sept. 18, 2007, and in line with earlier expectations for the season.

"Including this year, the six lowest extents in the satellite record have occurred in the last six years," the center noted on its website.

"Parts of the Arctic have become like a giant Slushee this time of year" due to thinning ice, Walt Meier, a scientist at the center, told reporters.

That thinner ice also explains how a storm in early August made a significant impact in speeding up the decline this month, Meier said.

At NASA, which helps with the satellite data, scientist Claire Parkinson said the trend has been "strongly downward."

This visualization shows the extent of Arctic sea ice on Aug. 26, 2012, the smallest area in three decades of satellite records. The yellow line shows the average minimum summer ice coverage from 1979 to 2010.

The 2007 decrease "stunned" researchers since it was so large compared to previous years, she said, and "this year it's plummeting" further.

It's not just sea ice in summer that's been weakened, she added. "No matter what month you're in, it's less ice than it used to be decades ago," she said.

The researchers added that manmade emissions tied to global warming offer the best explanation for the decline.

Ted Scambos, a senior NSIDC researcher, told NBC News that no one weather pattern explains the downward trend. "Greenhouse gasses are the only consistent explanation for a persistently warming Arctic," he added.

"The Arctic was our refrigerator," he said, but the warmer weather of the last five or six years have meant "a less polar pole."

Scambos said the Arctic system is too variable to guarantee that each future year would show a decline, but over time he expects the decline to continue. "I think we can expect further declines to new records," he said, "and eventually, an ice-free North Pole."

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Kathryn Hansen / NASA

Arctic melt ponds visited during a July 2011 expedition on the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Healy gave scientists a chance to find "windows from the sky to the ocean" that are perfect for phytoplankton blooms.

Experts were shocked to find a thick, 60-mile-long "phytoplankton megabloom" under Arctic sea ice, announcing in a study Thursday that ice made thinner by warming temperatures has, for now at least, created ideal conditions for the microscopic, single-cell plants to flourish.

More blooms are likely hidden under the ice, making for "ecological shifts" in Arctic waters that favor some species over others since phytoplankton are the base of the marine food chain, Stanford professor and lead researcher Kevin Arrigo told msnbc.com.

Scientists had thought Arctic phytoplankton blooms only happened after sea ice melted in summer, so the discovery is "like finding the Amazon rainforest in the middle of the Mojave Desert," added Paula Bontempi, who manages the ocean biology program at NASA, which funded the research.

"The waters literally looked like pea soup," Arrigo said at a press conference announcing the study in the journal Science. "It was as thick as a 5-year-old child is tall."

The team discovered the bloom in July 2011 in thin sea ice pocketed with ponds of melted ice on the Chukchi Sea off northern Alaska. Arctic sea ice has been shrinking and thinning in summer since 1979, the result of warming temperatures over the region. 

Those melt ponds proved crucial, allowing just enough light to get the growth process started while also protecting the algae from ultraviolet radiation.

"They were the windows from the sky to the ocean," said researcher Don Perovic, an ice scientist with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

"If I were a phytoplankton," Perovic added, "that's where I'd want to live."

Arrigo said in his 25 years of studying phytoplankton blooms he had never seen one this large. Blooms in open water are much smaller, he noted, while very thick ice won't allow any light in to start photosynthesis.

"It's going to be a more productive system," Arrigo said, noting that plankton bottom feeders will benefit as the plankton sinks to the bottom of the Chukchi, much of which is around 160 feet deep.

The researchers didn't expect Arctic sea ice to disappear completely, since winters are still very cold, but they did note some potential downsides.

Some fish species that rely on mid-level nutrients will suffer, Arrigo said, and the bigger issue is that a warming Arctic appears to be triggering phytoplankton blooms earlier.

Species that can't adapt "to be there at the right time of year" will suffer, Arrigo said.

NASA funded the expedition as a way to match the satellite-based data it gathers on the Arctic with data gathered on the ice.

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Pool / Reuters

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Norway's Minister of Foreign Affairs Jonas Gahr Stoere (right) talk onboard the Arctic research vessel Helmer Hanssen while touring a fjord off Tromso Saturday.

TROMSO, Norway -- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton boarded a research ship on Saturday to tour the Arctic, where big powers are vying for vast deposits of oil, gas and minerals that are becoming available as the polar ice recedes. 

The top U.S. diplomat took the unusual step of visiting Tromso, a Norwegian town in the Arctic Circle, to dramatize U.S. interests in a once inaccessible region whose resources are up for grabs as the sea ice melts with climate change.  

"From a strategic standpoint, the Arctic has an increasing geopolitical importance as countries vie to protect their rights and extend their influence," Clinton told reporters in Oslo before making the nearly two-hour flight north to Tromso. 

"We want to work with Norway and the Arctic Council to help manage these changes and to agree on what would be, in effect, the rules of the road in the Arctic, so new developments are economically sustainable and environmentally responsible," she added. 

The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that the Arctic holds about 13 percent of the world's undiscovered conventional oil and 30 percent of its undiscovered natural gas. 

 Clinton to assert U.S. claim in scramble for Arctic

Beyond the energy resources, as the ice melts Arctic sea passages are opening for longer periods each year, cutting thousands of miles off trade routes between Europe and Asia. 

On an eight-day trip to Scandinavia, the Caucasus and Turkey, Clinton is the latest high-profile visitors to the Arctic as it enjoys unprecedented political and economic power. 

While energy development costs could be twice as high as those of conventional onshore resources, that has not stopped of the oil industry's top players from moving in. 

Eco-campaigners condemn rush for oil
Exxon Mobil is working with Russia's Rosneft to develop blocks in the Kara Sea, off Siberia, despite the presence of sea ice for up to 300 days a year.  Russia's Gazprom is also working with Total of France and Norway's Statoil on the Shtokman gas field. 

But the rush for oil and gas has brought condemnation from environment campaigners and those who say the rights of local people risk being trampled. 

Environmental activists say the Arctic challenges require much more aggressive action on everything from fishing quotas to international standards for oil and gas development in a pristine, delicate region. 

Only about 4 million people live in Arctic areas, leaving local interest groups weak and creating a risk of uncontrolled development, a challenge for the Arctic Council, the advisory forum of eight nations formed in 1996 to promote cooperation. 

The council includes the United States, Canada, Russia, Norway, Finland, Iceland, Sweden and Denmark, which handles foreign affairs for Greenland, as well as groups representing indigenous people directly affected as ice and snow retreat. 

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Lucas Jackson / Reuters, file

U.S. Navy safety swimmers stand on the deck of the Virginia class submarine USS New Hampshire after it surfaced through thin ice during exercises underneath ice in the Arctic Ocean north of Prudhoe Bay, Alaska March 19, 2011.

YOKOSUKA, Japan -- To the world's military leaders, the debate over climate change is long over. They are preparing for a new kind of Cold War in the Arctic, anticipating that rising temperatures there will open up a treasure trove of resources, long-dreamed-of sea lanes and a slew of potential conflicts. 

By Arctic standards, the region is already buzzing with military activity, and experts believe that will increase significantly in the years ahead. 

Last month, Norway wrapped up one of the largest Arctic maneuvers ever — Exercise Cold Response — with 16,300 troops from 14 countries training on the ice for everything from high intensity warfare to terror threats. Attesting to the harsh conditions, five Norwegian troops were killed when their C-130 Hercules aircraft crashed near the summit of Kebnekaise, Sweden's highest mountain.

The U.S., Canada and Denmark held major exercises two months ago, and in an unprecedented move, the military chiefs of the seven main Arctic powers — Canada, the U.S., Russia, Iceland, Denmark, Sweden and Finland — are to gather at a Canadian military base in May to specifically discuss regional security issues. 

None of this means a shooting war is likely at the North Pole any time soon. But as the number of workers and ships increases in the High North to exploit oil and gas reserves, so will the need for policing, border patrols and — if push comes to shove — military muscle to enforce rival claims. 

High stakes
The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that 13 percent of the world's undiscovered oil and 30 percent of its untapped natural gas is in the Arctic.

Shipping lanes could be regularly open across the Arctic by 2030 as rising temperatures continue to melt the sea ice, according to a National Research Council analysis commissioned by the U.S. Navy last year. 

UK report analyzes risks of Arctic development

What countries should do about climate change remains a heated political debate. But that has not stopped north-looking militaries from moving ahead with strategies that assume current trends will continue. 

Russia, Canada and the United States have the biggest stakes in the Arctic. With its military budget stretched thin by Iraq, Afghanistan and more pressing issues elsewhere, the United States has been something of a reluctant northern power, though its nuclear-powered submarine fleet, which can navigate for months underwater and below the ice cap, remains second to none. 

Lucas Jackson / Reuters, file

U.S. Navy watch a display in the control room of the Virginia class submarine USS New Hampshire as it surfaces during exercises underneath ice in the Arctic Ocean north of Prudhoe Bay, Alaska March 20, 2011.

Russia — one-third of which lies within the Arctic Circle — has been the most aggressive in establishing itself as the emerging region's superpower. 

Rob Huebert, an associate political science professor at the University of Calgary in Canada, said Russia has recovered enough from its economic troubles of the 1990s to significantly rebuild its Arctic military capabilities, which were a key to the overall Cold War strategy of the Soviet Union, and has increased its bomber patrols and submarine activity. 

Huebert said that has in turn led other Arctic countries — Norway, Denmark and Canada — to resume regional military exercises that they had abandoned or cut back on after the Soviet collapse. Even non-Arctic nations such as France have expressed interest in deploying their militaries to the Arctic. 

Some Himalayan glaciers are actually growing

"We have an entire ocean region that had previously been closed to the world now opening up," Huebert said. "There are numerous factors now coming together that are mutually reinforcing themselves, causing a buildup of military capabilities in the region. This is only going to increase as time goes on." 

Noting that the Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the globe, the U.S. Navy in 2009 announced a beefed-up Arctic Roadmap by its own task force on climate change that called for a three-stage strategy to increase readiness, build cooperative relations with Arctic nations and identify areas of potential conflict. 

Climate forecasters eye 3 million years ago

"We want to maintain our edge up there," said Cmdr. Ian Johnson, the captain of the USS Connecticut, which is one of the U.S. Navy's most Arctic-capable nuclear submarines and was deployed to the North Pole last year. "Our interest in the Arctic has never really waned. It remains very important." 

US 'inadequately prepared'
But the U.S. remains ill-equipped for large-scale Arctic missions, according to a simulation conducted by the U.S. Naval War College. A summary released last month found the Navy is "inadequately prepared to conduct sustained maritime operations in the Arctic" because it lacks ships able to operate in or near Arctic ice, support facilities and adequate communications.

US sees record for warmest March -- and first quarter

The findings indicate the Navy is entering a new realm in the Arctic," said Walter Berbrick, a War College professor who participated in the simulation. "Instead of other nations relying on the U.S. Navy for capabilities and resources, sustained operations in the Arctic region will require the Navy to rely on other nations for capabilities and resources." 

He added that although the U.S. nuclear submarine fleet is a major asset, the Navy has severe gaps elsewhere — it doesn't have any icebreakers, for example. The only one in operation belongs to the Coast Guard. The U.S. is currently mulling whether to add more icebreakers.

US: 56 coral species face extinction danger

Acknowledging the need to keep apace in the Arctic, the United States is pouring funds into figuring out what climate change will bring, and has been working closely with the scientific community to calibrate its response. 

"The Navy seems to be very on board regarding the reality of climate change and the especially large changes we are seeing in the Arctic," said Mark C. Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences University of Colorado. "There is already considerable collaboration between the Navy and civilian scientists and I see this collaboration growing in the future." 

The most immediate challenge may not be war — both military and commercial assets are sparse enough to give all countries elbow room for a while — but whether militaries can respond to a disaster. 

Heather Conley, director of the Europe program at the London-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, said militaries probably will have to rescue their own citizens in the Arctic before any confrontations arise there. 

"Catastrophic events, like a cruise ship suddenly sinking or an environmental accident related to the region's oil and gas exploration, would have a profound impact in the Arctic," she said. "The risk is not militarization; it is the lack of capabilities while economic development and human activity dramatically increases that is the real risk."