The article describes a Utqiagvik family's significant milestone in catching the first bowhead whale of the spring season, amidst challenges posed by climate change affecting sea ice stability.
The lack of winter sea ice is keeping temperatures warm. Climatologist Rick Thoman says it's a "very clear climate change signal."
“I think it was a little more stable, and there was a little bit more assurance that the ice you were on was not going to disintegrate on you that easy,” said whaling captain Gordon Brower.
"These ridges that we’re standing on, there would have been more of them, and they would have been bigger," ice researcher Andy Mahoney said. "The features that we now see, they’re something of a shadow from the past." Listen now
The ice conditions are similar to last year (with) lots of young ice and close leads," said Captain Frederick Brower. "We all went out and broke trail to the edge, but a high west wind came along and added about three-quarters to 1 mile of ice and (we) had to break trail through that and began whaling from the new edge ... . The conditions were not favorable but we made due with what we had and continued on with our whaling season."
The roughly 300 miles of hard-packed snow roads were constructed under the Community Winter Access Trails (CWAT) project, headed by the North Slope Borough.
This November in Utqiaġvik was the hottest on record, averaging 17.2°F. It was so warm that NOAA's quality control algorithms flagged the data. “When we look out on the ocean right now we see a few icebergs,” Thomas said. “Normally we would see white to the horizon in the past, and in this case we’re seeing dark water to the horizon.”
Thanks to warming winters and thawing permafrost, Arctic soil microbes are churning out carbon dioxide well after the end of the growing season ends. This extra source of atmospheric carbon may accelerate a regional warming trend that is already twice as fast as the global average.
Every winter, a massive infrastructure project takes place on the North Slope one thats designed to disappear. Ice roads are built to minimize the oil industrys footprint on the sensitive tundra, and melt away in spring. Many of the oil industrys multi-million dollar projects on the North Slope cant be built until the ice roads are finished each year.
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