Scientific American, 5/29/18
“Early this month, the Colorado-based National Snow and Ice Data Center reported that winter sea ice levels in the Bering Sea had dropped to a record low level for this time of year. That wasn’t surprising news to the Alaska Native villages along the state’s western coast. For the last decade, those communities have been enduring the impacts of a warming climate, from the melting tundra that’s causing waterfront homes to fall into the ocean to a lack of coastal sea ice, which traditionally protected those communities from winter storm surges. Now the increasingly open waters are attracting new ship traffic to the Bering Strait, Bering Sea and Chukchi Sea, noted Austin Ahmasuk, a marine advocate for Kawerak, an Alaska Native regional tribal consortium.”
Read more at https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/amid-ice-melt-new-shipping-lanes-are-drawn-up-off-alaska/.
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