File:Absence of sea ice in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence affecting harp seals, Canada.jpg

English: These images, acquired by one of the Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellites on 23 March 2020 and 28 March 2021, provide evidence of the absence of sea ice in 2021 in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence in Canada. Each winter, a population of harp seals travels to the Gulf of Saint Lawrence from the Canadian Arctic and Greenland. Around late February and early March, the harp seals nest on the sea ice around the archipelago of Magdalen Islands (Îles de la Madeleine), giving birth to a new generation of pups. In 2021, due to the record low level of the sea ice extent, the lowest since 1969, hundreds of newborn pups have been discovered on the beach just outside the small community of Blanc-Sablon in Québec, about 500 kilometres northeast of the Magdalen Islands. National Geographic reports that 2021 is expected to be a devastating year for this harp seal population, resulting in an enormous death toll for the pups that are left separated from their mothers amidst unstable ice floes and exposed to land predators, further threatening the survival of the entire species. Multispectral data provided by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission can be a powerful tool for the retrieval of the biogeophysical parameters of sea ice in polar regions.