Eaten by the Sea: Alaska’s Race Against Ice, Erosion, and Time

When it comes to global climate crises, Alaska inhabits a unique position on the frontlines. It is warming faster than any other US state (and faster than most regions in the world) to the tune of about three degrees per century since 1950.

It’s no revelation that glaciers and sea ice are shrinking, the region’s snowmelt comes earlier each year, and permafrost is diminishing (which releases much more provocative greenhouse gases). The state’s marine and coastal ecologies are being redrawn in real time. Even more, the warming is a warning. For, this comparatively fast changing environment is set to have profound impacts on the rest of the planet.

Why faster?

Alaska’s high-latitude location on Earth means it is subject to amplification, where things are hotting up around three to four times faster than the rest of the planet. There is a lagging albedo effect in play: less ice means less reflection of light and heat and greater absorption. Glacial melt (Alaska has some of the largest ice fields outside Antarctica and Greenland) are thinning and retreating at an accelerated rate, adding to sea level rise. The Juneau Icefield for example, has seen glacial volume loss rates double in the last 15 years, with shrinkage reaching as much as five times faster in the most recent ones.

Indeed, there is a material contribution to broader global sea level rise, but that’s a problem for another day. This is because for Alaska, the impact is localised and immediate. The erosion of coastlines is on the march and shorelines are disintegrating. And, the marine habitats that evolved in, and for the the cold, are destabilising. Warming waters once held at arms length by the resilience of the sea ice are now infiltrating and transforming ecosystems.

Calanus Glacialis

Calanus is a cold-loving copepod. It’s a three to five millimetre crustacean and it is the bedrock species near the base of an ecosystem whereby the feeding upon it passes energy and nutrients up the food chain. The warmer water invading its territory though, is disrupting its lifecycle. Species such as arctic cod, a variety of seabirds, and bowhead whales, are all reliant on it. Since the sea ice has retreated however, the local marine environment warms too quickly in the spring leading to an incongruity between the blooming of the phytoplankton that feed the Calanus, and the copepod’s developmental stage. The misaligned overlap thins the Calanus population and competition for food/energy intensifies up the ecological pyramid. Less fuel is available at each level. It manifests itself at the top through weakened fish stocks and so affects the privileged creature residing at the highest point: the human.

In the Bering Sea too, there is the Walleye Pollock, or Gadus chalcogrammus. It’s a key commercial fish species as well as a vital prey to marine mammals and seabirds. Seasonal sea ice went some way to maintaining a cooler medium of deeper water that created a natural barrier against the Walleye. The fish were kept in more southern seas and Arctic benthic communities (living on or in the seabed) were afforded some protection. Now, what with the ice retreating, Walleye communities are able to expand into otherwise untouchable northern territories and this is having a multilayered impact. The arrival of the pollock introduces additional competition for species such as saffron and Arctic cod. Even more, the predator-prey dynamic between Pacific walruses and spectacled eiders and their food - the benthic fauna - are disrupted also, by the damage the Walleye do to those less peripatetic animals.

Adapt or Perish

The warmer rising sea affects coastal and land environments too. As the saltwater intrudes it modifies the soil chemistry causing vegetation to die back and habitats of nesting birds to disappear. Natural storm barriers and biodiversity are impacted by coastal erosion and submergence of the land-sea frontier. The estuarine nurseries where the young of a variety of species dwell are disrupted by altered salinity levels (salmon and herring for example). Even habitats that provide stopovers for migratory birds - like the Pacific black brant - are vanishing. Broadly warmer temperatures too, are causing misalignments between vegetational blooms and insects, and those migrating animals that need to rest on the former and feed on the latter. The coast and the sea are an interdependent web that have emerged in the cold and learned to thrive in it. Now, they must adapt or perish.

The list goes on. Polar bears are struggling due to the diminishing of their hunting habitat: the melting of the sea ice. Ringed seals create dens in sea ice within which to give birth. Without the ice, newborns are exposed to the elements and predators. The timing of the ice melt has disrupted the migration of Pacific salmon (the Chinook species have seen an 8% decline in their body size since the 1940s).

Warming waters and resulting ocean acidification is impairing the development of the Bristol Bay red king crab and reducing its survival rates. Aside from the tampering with the marine ecosystem within which it dwells, community’s commercial fisheries are also being affected. Beluga whales are seeing their habitat disappearing and are also subject to increased vessel traffic that comes with seas that are freer from sea ice. That traffic causes noise pollution and stress. An already endangered species then is experiencing additional population decline.

A New Political Era

Even more ominously, in his very first day in office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order called Unleashing Alaska’s Extraordinary Resource Potential. Notwithstanding his general disdain for the climate crisis generally, the order is designed to accelerate the development of Alaska’s fisheries, timber, and energy concerns (amongst other things). His plan appears exhaustive and intensive and will not just have a potentially catastrophic impact on the region as a whole, but has been made the more easy to exploit by the increasing warmth and retreating ice. There is hope in the legal hurdles and required cooperation from otherwise opposing government agencies however…

There is also hope in the various programs and initiatives devised to sustain the environment in that region. There are polar bear habitat protections and legal advocacy by organisations called the Alaska Wildlife Alliance (and others). The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has a profound presence in Alaska where it monitors across the ecological spectrum for any changes in coastal and marine environments. There is the Cook Inlet Whale Conservation Plan which aims to restore the animal’s population.

There is a raft of organisations and people working to inform and preserve throughout Alaska and beyond and, needless to say, need more support through awareness and funding. NOAA’s Arctic Vision and Strategy describes the work still required: drastic reduction of global greenhouse gas emissions, sustainable protections and management of critical habitats, further expansion of scientific research and monitoring, engagement with local communities and stakeholders, the strengthening of regulatory frameworks to curtail industrial presence and exploitation, construction of ecosystem resilience, and increasing public awareness and policy advocacy.

Awareness alone is not enough. Alaska’s story is not just one of loss - it’s a warning writ large in ice and water. What happens there is not isolated; it’s a mirror of our planetary future. The time for action is not tomorrow - it’s already slipping beneath the waves.