Ice Conditions

Harding Glacier near Skagway.

NPS

Winter conditions often last over six months in parts of Alaska. Ice and snow dominate the landscape, greatly influencing the natural world. Plants and animals have adapted to this frozen world, and so have the humans who depend on these resources. Glaciers and sea ice are two of the most well-known ice features affected by climate change's warmer temperatures. As the ice changes, so do people’s lifestyles and ways of thinking about the places they live.

In Skagway, ice appears as high mountain glaciers, and frozen lakes and rivers. In Nome, sea ice is critical to continuing traditions of harvesting subsistence foods.

Melting Glaciers

When you ask about changing ice conditions in Skagway, talk immediately turns to glaciers. There are glaciers in the mountains above White Pass, the Chilkoot Trail, and across Taiya Inlet and Lynn Canal. Like many places around the world, warming temperatures are having a serious effect on the glaciers near Skagway. Glaciers are melting and receding as the surface ice turns to water during warm summers or are shrinking without the annual heavy winter accumulation of snow that builds up new layers of ice. The glacier on Mount Harding, visible directly across the inlet from downtown Skagway, is a touchstone for local residents.

We’re just in tears some days when we see big chunks of ice falling off our glacier on Harding Mountain. It’s amazing how fast the glacier is receding. – Joanne Beierly, Skagway

Our little glacier. Every day, we see it and it’s tiny, it's disappearing. – Elaine Furbish, Skagway

Increased glacial melt and run-off mixed with more rain and snow fill the Taiya and Skagway Rivers with more water than in the past. This sometimes creates seasonal localized flooding, increases bank erosion, and can contribute to sea level rise. The added cold freshwater and sediment from glacial runoff changes the water chemistry, negatively affecting the plant and animal communities of fragile riverine ecosystems.

The floods are a little more frequent because there’s more glacial melting that’s contributing to the river levels. – John McDermott, Skagway

While not directly the result of glacial melt and run-off, glacial-related flooding has been a recent problem in Skagway. In July 2002, the water level in West Creek, flowing out of West Creek Glacier into the Taiya River, rose very high and very suddenly and flooded homes and roads in Dyea. People, like John McDermott, were evacuated. Large sections of riverbank eroded. The heavy water flow also shifted the river’s main channel.

Scientists discovered that the flood was caused by a rockslide dropping large boulders into the lake at the bottom of West Creek Glacier and pushing a large volume of water over the lake’s edge into West Creek. While the researchers found little direct correlation with glacial melting, it’s possible that other environmental changes increased the possibility for such a slide. This unexpected event remains strong in local people’s memories, and, despite what the scientists say, they associate it with glacial melting and climate change.

I think a lot of what happened with the West Creek flood is climate change, because the glacier had receded and made a lake. It’s never happened before. – Bea Lingle, Skagway

Loss of Sea Ice

Arctic ice floes and melt ponds.

NOAA

Across the state in Nome, change to sea ice is one of the top climate change issues. The effects of warmer temperatures and warmer oceans are clear.

The main thing that we’ve seen recently is the sea ice and lack thereof and thinning. – Jacob Martin, Nome

There is less sea ice, it goes out earlier, and freeze up is a lot later. Winter season is shorter and is taking longer to occur. – Roy Ashenfelter, Nome

Huge pressure ridges formed east-west when I was young. I remember monster icebergs as big as a house in Norton Sound, and multi-year icebergs stranded on the beach in Nome. The last time I saw one was in the early 1960s. – Charlie Lean, Nome

Blocks of sea ice piled along the shoreline in front of Nome.

NPS

Changing ice conditions in the Bering Sea has broader impacts on communities and coastal ecosystems. Of greatest concern is coastal erosion and protection sea ice provides to community infrastructure.

The loss of sea ice causes more erosion and damage to the coast. As we get storm surges, the ice acts as a protecting barrier to the coast, and when it doesn’t exist it really increases erosion. And it really makes communities worry because protections that they used to have from the ice aren’t there, or they’re not there long enough, or the ice isn’t thick enough for them to be protected. – Jeanette Koelsch, Nome

Increased wave action and the wind pushing the water against the sand, if it’s not armored with shorefast ice, will cause erosion. That’s literally the recipe for erosion. – Tahzay Jones, Anchorage

Bering Sea storm near Nome.

NPS

Ice is a key component of the Bering Sea ecosystem. Ice cover helps control wave action, water salinity, ocean temperature, and nutrient production. With less sea ice, these elements are changing, as are the animals and fish that live in this usually cold-water environment.

There is a domino effect related to the loss of sea ice. Warm air from the south destroys the ice, and ice is weakened from the warm water below. The waves on this thin ice consumes it and turns it back into water. It’s not the same as ten years ago when the ice was thick and would not crumple. – Gay Sheffield, Nome

With the loss of sea ice, the ocean temperatures are now very, very warm throughout the water column. There is no more thermal barrier between the cold water that sinks to the bottom and the warmer water on top, which had created two separate ecosystems. The barrier has been so dissolved that animals from the Southern Bering Sea are moving north and surviving, where in the past they didn’t do well in the cold water. So the animals from the south have really overwhelmed this region. – Gay Sheffield

What water-related changed have you noticed where you live? Have any of these changes impacted communities near you?

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