Ten fur seals and hundreds of fish washed up dead on a Pribilof beach last year. New research links the die-off to warming oceans.

“This is a very new type of model which simulates each piece of the ice flow, like little polygons moving around,” Zhang said. “So, when I first saw that model, I said, ‘Oh, this is really cool. It can be really useful for coastal communities to get the sense of how the ice moves around.’”

Plans by the Native Village of Kotzebue to sell wind power to its local electric cooperative are on hold after the federal government slashed a $150 million grant for Alaska tribal infrastructure projects earlier this month.

The Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation reported the spill of up to 400,000 gallons of water used at a large lead and zinc mine in Northern Alaska early Wednesday. According to the department, the spill of “process water” occurred at about 2:30 a.m. at the Red Dog Mine, located around 80 miles north of Kotzebue.

A magnitude 5.1 earthquake on March 13, around 50 miles north of Ambler, was the largest in the state that week. And the day before, a magnitude 5 struck near Point Hope.Researchers say that's unusual. In the “seismically quiet” northern regions of Alaska, earthquakes of this magnitude typically occur, on average, 2-3 years apart.

Rob Rosenfeld, a consultant for several tribes that oppose the project, believes the Corps dragged its feet and should have killed the 404 permitting after the Biden administration rejected the project in June. Rosenfeld said the Corps' inaction went against the wishes of 88 tribal governments that oppose the project.

Infrastructure projects across the country are in limbo after the Trump administration placed a sweeping 90-day hold on federal grant and loan programs. For the Northwest Arctic, this jeopardizes millions of dollars for previously funded energy projects and could further delay them for at least a year.

This fall, ice coverage was at a near-historic low. Now, as winter sets in, local observers and researchers believe fall storms may have caused much thinner ice conditions than normal.

For the first time, however, researchers in two northern Alaska communities want to study how electric vehicles, including electric snowmachines, could be incorporated into their isolated power grids.

Officials said the flooding destroyed Kotzebue’s dock, several roads and bridges and dozens of structures at multiple subsistence camps. The force of the storm also transported four large dumpsters to a sandbar in Kotzebue’s lagoon. City officials said two homes were also destroyed, displacing a family of six and a disabled elder.