The Bering Sea region, the Pacific gateway to the Arctic Ocean, is home to ecosystems on land and in the ocean that are both abundant and fragile. It’s also changing very quickly — and those changes offer a preview of the changes in store for other parts of the Arctic.

Recent storms and warm seas melted a vast stretch of ice in the Bering Sea, leaving some islands surrounded by water when they should be locked in ice.

A series of low pressure systems swept through western and northwestern Alaska beginning December 28 until things calmed down on January 2, leaving sections of villages without power and communicat