The ringed seal is the most abundant and wide-ranging ice seal in the Northern Hemisphere; they can be found throughout the Arctic Ocean, into the Bering Sea and Okhotsk Sea as far south as the northern coast of Japan in the Pacific, and throughout the North Atlantic coasts of Greenland and Scandinavia as far south as Newfoundland.

However, some projections indicate that the extinction of their predators due to warming may ultimately allow ringed seal numbers to thrive.

Ringed seals have a circumpolar distribution from approximately 35°N to the North Pole, occurring in all seas of the Arctic Ocean.

Throughout their range, ringed seals have an affinity for ice-covered waters and are well adapted to occupying seasonal and permanent ice.

[13] Ringed seals are found throughout the Beaufort, Chukchi, and Bering Seas, as far south as Bristol Bay in years of extensive ice coverage.

During late April through June, ringed seals are distributed throughout their range from the southern ice edge northward.

Results of surveys conducted by Frost and Lowry (1999) indicate that, in the Alaskan Beaufort Sea, the density of ringed seals in May–June is higher to the east than to the west of Flaxman Island.

The overall winter distribution is probably similar, and it is believed there is a net movement of seals northward with the ice edge in late spring and summer.

Thus, ringed seals occupying the Bering and southern Chukchi seas in winter apparently are migratory, but details of their movements are unknown.

[3] Ringed seals eat a wide variety of small prey that consists of 72 species of fish and invertebrates.

[15] Ringed seals have long been an important component of the diet of Arctic indigenous peoples throughout their range, and continue to be harvested annually by many communities.

[3] Early Paleoeskimo sites in Arctic Canada revealed signs of harvested ringed seals dating from c. 4000–3500 BP, likely captured in frozen cracks and leads in the ice, with a selection for juveniles and young adults.

Climate change is potentially the most serious threat to ringed seal populations since much of their habitat is dependent upon pack ice.

[20] Without access to sea ice, ringed seals are unable to sustain life, which further affects trophic levels both above and below.

Yet through further exploration, the potential fates of this Arctic food web seem to be ambiguous, leading to a very important trade off of polar bear mortality and ringed seal sustenance.

Ferguson et al.[22] studied ringed seal recruitment in western Hudson Bay with a focus on six environmental variables, including: snow depth, snowfall, rainfall, the temperature when pups were born, North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) mechanisms, and lastly the spring break-up.

The results of Ferguson et al. determined that decreases in snowfall had a negative effect on ringed seal recruitment, most likely from the occurrence of earlier break up of sea ice.

With seal pups being forced into the water sooner due to lack of ice, recruitment numbers dropped and resulted in a downward trend of the population.

Most of this research is actually studied through simulations, since this requires future projections and interactions between many population, physical ocean, and biological mechanisms.

Meier et al.[10] studied current and future projections of climate in regards to sea-ice in the Baltic Sea by means of atmosphere-ocean models.

(Meier et al. 2004) The changes in ice scarcity projected for the future seem to greatly hinder the ability for ringed seals to reproduce in the Baltic Sea.

[23] The lower ice coverage means more open water swimming for the ringed seals, which caused higher stress (cortisol) rates.

Secondly, pollution from organochlorides due to DDT and other residues caused many Arctic marine mammals including the ringed seal to become sterile.

The first projection focuses on the direct effects of climate change on sea-ice and the limited environment that it will provide the ringed seal with.

The majority of past research has been focused around this main idea of quicker melting sea ice leading to lower ringed seal populations from lack of breeding areas.