THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
February 5, 2020 at 18:25 JST
Drift ice arrives at the coast of Esashi, Hokkaido, on Feb. 4. (Masatoshi Narayama)
ESASHI, Hokkaido--The first drift ice of winter arrived along the coast here on Feb. 4 to a warm welcome from locals and tourists who turned out to view the highly-anticipated natural phenomenon.
Drift ice heading south in the Sea of Okhotsk was first spotted along part of the Esashi coast early in the evening of Feb. 3. By the next morning, it was visible along the town's entire coast.
The ice floes arrived later than usual but have yet to reach Monbetsu and Abashiri, where tourists flock at this time of year to view them from aboard ice-breakers.
Strong winds from the northeast spurred by a low pressure system that developed Jan. 30-31 hastened the arrival of the floes in Esashi, according to the Wakkanai local meteorological observatory.
Though Monbetsu observed its first drift ice on Feb. 4 and the ice-breaker Garinko No. II reached drift ice areas off Monbetsu port, the ice floes have yet to arrive at the city's coast.
Drift ice has been dwindling rapidly over the last century due to warmer seasonal temperatures. The probability of the ice ceasing to arrive in the vicinity of Abashiri is estimated at 50 percent in the middle of this century, and 84 percent at the start of the next.
(This article was written by Masatoshi Narayama and Masafumi Kamimura.)
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