Figure 2. Sea ice in the Bering Sea during mostly cloud-free days in early April 2013, 2018, and 2019 (left to right) observed using Aqua/MODIS satellite imagery. At this time of year, 2013 had approximately 4.5 times as much ice coverage as in 2018 and 2019 (see Figure 3 below). (Imagery obtained from At this time of year, 2013 had approximately 4.5 times as much ice coverage as in 2018 and 2019 (see Figure 3 below). (Imagery obtained from NASA Worldview ).

Figure 3. Annual sea ice coverage (extent) in the Bering Sea. The last two years are shown as the black (2017-2018) and red (2018-2019) lines, and a recent heavy ice year (2012-2013) is shown as the blue line. The light gray area shows the full range of ice coverage during the baseline period of 1981-2010, and the dark gray line is the median ice coverage for this same period.

WINDS AND WEATHER. One of the biggest dangers we face is that we are no longer able to reliably predict the weather, which is less stable now than in the past. In today’s world, we may see four weather patterns in a single day, typically with rapid shifts in wind direction. This limits our ability to spend time on the land or on the ocean (e.g., waiting for whales to come within chasing distance of our boats). It affects our planning and ability to collect and prepare our foods. For example, at Wales, due to more southerly winds in recent years, we see a change in when our clams show up; we used to harvest them in fall but now we do so in summer.

We are also experiencing changes in our precipitation—primarily less snow in winter, more frequent winter rain events, and wetter summers. The winter snow is needed to fill our creeks for safe crossings, to keep our ptarmigan nearby through providing shelter as they burrow and eat willows throughout the cold months, and to provide for bountiful salmon berry harvests in summer. Winter rains coat our runways in ice and prevent the planes from landing in our communities, the vast majority of which are not connected to road systems. At Nome, as we travel back and forth to our fish camps in summer, wetter weather with more unpredictable and heavy rains leaves us fewer days to dry our fish. As a result, we are increasingly using roofs (or hootches) over our fish drying racks. This past year’s unusually warm air and water temperatures may also be linked to greater weeds seen in our lagoons. At Safety Lagoon near Nome, weeds rising through the water were clogging boat engines as we traveled to our cabins in summer.

I can remember as a kid growing up, it started snowing in October and it didn't melt all the way until April or May, maybe sometimes June... Lately we don't get any real cold snow until January, maybe February.... Two or three years ago, we didn't get much snow, and it got cold really fast, and when it got cold really fast, it killed a lot of the moss on the island. (Jacob Merculief - St. Paul, AK)

STORMS AND EROSION. Warning signs are found all around us of the challenges we face with our eroding shorelines and thawing permafrost. We are seeing coastal landslides, large sinkholes (Figure 4), and methane bubbling up through our ponds in summer. Thawing permafrost combined with more frequent and higher storm surges, made possible by the diminishing sea ice, is threatening our roads, runways, schools, homes, fish camps, and utilities that carry our water and sewage. This strikes at the heart of our safety, health, and economic well-being. In Golovin, where many community members fish commercially, our only fish processing plant is falling into the ocean. We know that these types of losses are often only a matter of time, but there is also a lot that we still have time to protect. We are encouraging our young people to build on higher ground.

Golovin as a coastal community is being affected very quickly by the storm surges, by erosion. In the 90's, we had to move our airport up on the hill because, even today it is flooding, and the old airport is being covered with water right now... Within the last few years, we've been encouraging our people to build on higher ground; to be out of the flood plain. (Carol Oliver - Golovin, AK)