A seawall planned for Utqiagvik is aimed at protecting residents from extreme storms while preserving their connection to the ocean.
With homes dilapidating, shores eroding and staircases falling off the houses, Point Lay residents are living through some of the most severe consequences of the warming climate in Alaska.
The flooding was caused by a weather system that moved up to the Bering Sea from the tropics, and raised water levels and dumped rain across much of western Alaska.
This comes just days after other reports of about 60 dead ice seals found from Kotlik to Kotzebue and Kivalina to Point Hope.
The open ocean off Utqiagvik in fall and early winter is evidence of climate change. Remarkably, bowhead whales appear to be thriving, although there are new challenges. Kidney-worm infections have been detected in bowheads, possibly brought by other species of whales coming north. And then there are the killer whales, a natural predators of bowheads now venturing north.
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.
The Arctic Sounder - Serving the Northwest Arctic and the North Slope
Staring out into the darkness, she and her husband Ivan saw "an enormous ball of light in the sky to the west. It was moving north to south, and was quite big."
A tundra fire has burned nearly 2,000 acres on the Selawik National Wildlife Refuge over the past week.
Of the 89 wildfires burning across Alaska right now, several are in the northern part of the state, either in the Arctic or near its southern boundary.
October began with "an explosion" of COVID-19 positive cases despite efforts to tighten and extend restrictions. In the first five days 14 residents on the North Slope and 23 in the Northwest Arctic, upping active caseloads in each borough to 40 and 45, respectively.
The school site is about six miles northeast of town. If constructed, it would serve as the terminus of the evacuation route and as a modern shelter capable of housing the entire community.
For decades, the crowds of small, dark sea geese on the tundra of southwestern Alaska's Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta have been thinning, a situation opposite that of geese on the North Slope.
Snow is melting sooner and coming in later on the North Slope, and that, in turn, is having an affect on other ecological variables.
Dozens of walruses were found dead earlier this month at their seasonal haulout near Point Lay. The findings came just about a day after locals said they saw an airplane they believed to be flying inappropriately over the herd, which comes to shore each year once the sea ice recedes past the continental shelf and it becomes too deep for them to feed.
For one day last week, the village of Deering needed to use a boat to get to the airport.
Around 60 ice seals have been reported dead across northern and western Alaska this month. The cause of the strandings and deaths is not known.
About 20 to 30 medium-sized birds with black backs and white bellies were found spaced out along the entire beach of the island.
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