Too Much Rain

Observation by Janet Mitchell:

With the summer season coming sooner and sooner, we are hunting the bearded seals earlier as well but why do we have to have rain in June? It has wreaked havoc on the preservation process. Many of the foods were molding because of the moisture in the air. I had to hang our drying meat inside my house and clean the mold after bringing them in.

Comments from LEO Editors:

The impact to subsistence food is important to note here. This observation has been shared with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Division of Subsistence.

The UAF Scenarios Network for Alaska + Arctic Planning (SNAP) historical precipitation chart compares daily precipitation for locations around Alaska. The circles indicate daily precipitation frequency, and circle size and color indicate relative intensity. To the right of the chart, opposing bars indicate precipitation levels 6 months prior to the represented month, as well as the precipitation in the 6 months following.

For the Kotzebue area, one larger circle appears slightly after mid-June. According to precipitation data collected in previous years, it appears that precipitation in June does occur, but the June 2017 event may have been more intense.

Also available from the SNAP website are temperature and precipitation histories and projections.These graphs compare average monthly totals rather than the daily data shown in the historical precipitation chart. For Kivalina, there has been an increase in average monthly precipitation amounts from between 1961-1990 and 2010-2019 (estimated future projection). That chart can be found here. There has also been an increase in average monthly temperature during that same time period, as represented here. E. Mitchell

Anna Godduhn, Subsistence Resource Specialist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, writes:

I have not been to the Northwest region lately but worked in several communities there in the last few years. In Deering and Shishmaref we heard a lot about the compression of spring seal hunting from 6 to 8 weeks into 2 to 4. In those places as well as Golovin and Noorvik, we heard that early warm springs are turning to cool wet summers with some mentions of difficulty drying, especially fish. We recently finished a report about subsistence on the Northwest coast that includes a lot of climate change context. I am less familiar with the findings from the other communities (Stebbins, Kotzebue, Diomede, Point Hope, and Point Lay) but the report can be found online: Chukchi Sea and Norton Sound Observation Network: harvest and use of wild resources in 9 communities in Arctic Alaska, 2012-2014