“You could take your sailboat and sail from Dillingham all the way to Little Diomede and never see much more than an ice cube.
Climate change has allowed spotted seals to find new hunting grounds, but the marine mammals ultimately depend on sea ice to survive.
Even if a storm does hit Western Alaska, thicker sea ice will always be more resistant than last year’s ice was at this time, a climatologist says.
Danny Foster and Mike Hawley of Kivalina were ice fishing outside of town when they came upon something they’d never seen before. Incidentally, similar ice balls or ice eggs were reported on an ocean beach in Finland on the same day.
The snowfall came after Anchorage broke the daily record for warmest Dec. 31, with temperatures at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport measuring 46 degrees.
The National Weather Service has issued a flood advisory for Kenai Lake and the Kenai River near Cooper Landing.
It's possible the trio’s canoe was upset by a calving, or shedding, piece of ice. Although all three were wearing life jackets, none was wearing a wetsuit to protect against the frigid water.
“It was a beautiful event that we were lucky to have survived,” Andrew Hooper said.
Alvin Williams was reported missing on May 2. His body was found Sunday, troopers said.
Though snow is scant in Anchorage, organizers are confident they will be able to host the Jan. 3-8 race series.
After being buried, the trapped hiker was able to kick his legs free. A hiker passing by spotted his feet sticking out of the snow.
The incident appears similar to an oil and gas release in 2017 blamed on thawing permafrost and hot production fluids.
“When I first started six years ago, icebergs like this were more common,” says a tour boat captain on the lake near Anchorage.
Rabbit Creek jumped its banks Friday morning on the Anchorage Hillside, washing over a bridge and prompting police to knock on doors asking people inside to evacuate.
Jeffrey Cheng, 33, died in the slide. One of his friends managed to hold on to a tree as waves of avalanche debris washed over his head. The third member of their group wasn’t caught.
When Jazmin James hadn’t returned to Tununak by Easter Sunday as planned, the family reported him missing. His snowmachine was found on sea ice, partly submerged in water.
That hurts coastal communities that hunt on the ice. But colder weather may be coming, at least to some portions of Alaska.
In villages like Kongiganak, communities have stopped burying their dead because, as the permafrost melts, the oldest part of their cemetery is sinking.
The lodge at above 3,000 feet altitude on the Glenn Highway measured 6 to 8 inches of snow as of Monday morning -- and it was still falling.
A new study estimates that climate impacts to public infrastructure in Alaska will total about $5 billion by century's end.
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