Climate Change

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.

“What we see in the Arctic is that plants will take [mercury] up and then store it, and when they die, rather than decaying and re-releasing that mercury, they're actually frozen and stored in the permafrost,” Smith said. “So you have this big accumulation in stores of mercury in permafrost.”

“It's getting faster and more dramatic. So there's quite a bit of change,” Grosse said. “We see lake change. Lots of lakes are draining in this region over the last years.”

Although sheefish are abundant now, they could be threatened by warming Arctic temperatures, according to Bill Carter, a fish biologist for the Selawik National Wildlife Refuge, based in Kotzebue. His focus is on the refuge’s aquatic habitat. For eight years, he and a group of Fish and Wildlife colleagues studied a potential threat to sheefish: the permafrost thaw slump.

One of Sullivan’s findings is that increased precipitation and snowpack in the Northwest Arctic may be encouraging the growth of white spruce trees, causing a northern migration of the treeline.

According to Alaska-based climatologists, these heavy mid-to-late winter storms might become more common and signify a climatic shift for the region.

The sharp decline in the season length can be directly linked to the decline in sea ice due to a warming climate. That’s the finding of a new collaborative study conducted by the Native Village of Kotzebue and the International Arctic Research Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

Kotzebue’s July was one for the record books, with the highest monthly precipitation on record. The previous rainfall record for the midsummer month was set more than two decades ago.

The University of Alaska Fairbanks has found evidence that warming waters outside the Arctic are impacting sea ice as well.

Several Alaska energy researchers will be featured during a national U.S. Arctic Research Commission conference this week.