By Kristin Hetterman
...What locals are noticing, (click here) scientists and satellites are reinforcing. Alaska’s sea ice had unprecedented melting this summer, with the National Weather Service reporting there was no sea ice left within 150 miles of Alaskan coastlines. Satellite measurements done by NASA show summer sea ice levels in the Arctic have dropped by approximately 40 percent since the late 1970s. Sea ice—frozen ocean water—forms, grows and melts in the ocean, as compared to icebergs, glaciers and ice shelves that float in the ocean but originate on land.
Loss of sea ice has serious implications for animals and indigenous practices, with native people relying on the sea ice to support their living ecosystem that is dependent on fish and wildlife. Food security has become a major instigator for the planet’s first official climate refugees, with a recent U.N. report estimating two billion people face moderate to severe food insecurity due largely to the warming planet with escalating extreme weather events and shifting weather patterns. Behavioral adaptations are key to survival, and the Inupiat in the far north are by necessity deep into navigating what those adaptations are going to look like....
...The Arctic summer of 2019 headlined well-above-average temperatures, warmer seas and a historic July heat wave going into the unprecedented 90’s. In terms of records, July was the hottest month ever recorded on planet Earth since 1880, when modern recordkeeping began. In 2017, Cook Inletkeeper published projections for nonglacial stream temperatures in different case scenarios for climate change in Alaska, projecting out to 2069. Shockingly, temperatures recorded in 2019 surpassed even the worst-case projections for 50 years in the future....
Loss of sea ice has serious implications for animals and indigenous practices, with native people relying on the sea ice to support their living ecosystem that is dependent on fish and wildlife. Food security has become a major instigator for the planet’s first official climate refugees, with a recent U.N. report estimating two billion people face moderate to severe food insecurity due largely to the warming planet with escalating extreme weather events and shifting weather patterns. Behavioral adaptations are key to survival, and the Inupiat in the far north are by necessity deep into navigating what those adaptations are going to look like....
...The Arctic summer of 2019 headlined well-above-average temperatures, warmer seas and a historic July heat wave going into the unprecedented 90’s. In terms of records, July was the hottest month ever recorded on planet Earth since 1880, when modern recordkeeping began. In 2017, Cook Inletkeeper published projections for nonglacial stream temperatures in different case scenarios for climate change in Alaska, projecting out to 2069. Shockingly, temperatures recorded in 2019 surpassed even the worst-case projections for 50 years in the future....
This melting isn't new.
By Ed Pilkington
Newtok in Alaska, where global warming is forcing the entire community to relocate.
...It is here on Nelson Island (click here) that America's first global-warming refugee camp is being built. Three houses, neatly arranged on stilts in the style of Peter John's home back in Newtok, are already nearing completion. The villagers built them themselves, with the help of government grants, on land that is high enough up the hillside to be safe from the dangers of climate change - rising sea levels, flash flooding, erosion - for decades, if not centuries, to come. The first three homes have been assigned to village elders, including Stanley's father, Nick Tom. As Stanley shows us around the new houses, with their wood-burning stoves and mail-order catalogue kitchens, he talks of his huge relief that the move has begun. 'The elders are our advisers; they are our resources. We owe it to them to provide them with a life without trouble and worry. I can sleep at night now, knowing my father will be safe.'...
