The two men, who were both part of an active whaling crew, were in one of the boats on a towline, towing a whale to shore, when their boat flipped, according to fellow whalers who were there when it happened.
Unusual Stellar sea lion (Eumetopias jubatus) sighting in Utqiaġvik.
"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
Sea ice has shrunk, but scientists are seeing signs that Alaska's bowhead whales are flourishing.
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.
With the average temperature hovering north of negative this winter, Utqiaġvik and much of the Arctic once again broke records with a season that didn't match up to historic expectations.
Late December and early January starts to the off-road season have become normal as warmer temperatures continue to mark the winter months across most of the Arctic. While industry has had to adapt to changes, many locals are still struggling to find a new normal amidst the shifting seasons.
A September storm caused damage in Utqiagvik, and Gov. Bill Walker declared a disaster there last month.
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.”
The North Slope Borough will have access to help with recovery efforts for the autumn storm that pummeled the coastline earlier this year, causing more than a million dollars worth of damage.
The declaration gives the far-north community of Utqiagvik access to state money to help repair damaged infrastructure like roads.
The storm began Sept. 28 and continued for several days. A handful of Utqiaġvik’s roads were damaged or destroyed, and the community's freshwater source was nearly compromised.
Disaster funds are reserved for single events, and storms that collectively cause much damage aren't often individually large enough to count as disasters.
Cleanup and recovery from the recent storm that battered the North Slope coastline may carry a price tag exceeding $10 million.
HEALY, ALASKA—Bitter winters still dominate life in the Alaskan interior, but a practiced eye can spot the signs of a warming climate, particularly in the ground. Beneath the rolling fields of tussock scattered just north of the Alaska Range, what was once permanently frozen is starting to thaw. The impacts could ripple across the planet.
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.
Air emissions from Prudhoe Bay-area oil fields can have a big influence on the particles in the air in Utqiaġvik, the town formerly known as Barrow.
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.
When a storm exposes human remains in Barrow, there isn’t an established protocol. They are usually given to the federally recognized Native Village of Barrow for repatriation.
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