Antonia Gonzales

Photo: Utqiagvik coast in June 2022. (Alena Naiden) Arctic sea ice has been shrinking in recent decades, reaching record lows both in summer and in winter. A new study shows a continuation of this trend: ice is sticking to Alaska’s northern shores for less time than it used to. Researchers say this can have implications for the climate, resource development, and subsistence hunting. The Alaska Desk’s Alena Naiden from our flagship station KNBA reports. Andrew Mahoney is a research professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute. In January, he and his colleague published a study in the “Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans”. It focused on the ice that attaches to the shores of Alaska’s northern coast, called landfast ice. They found that over nearly three decades, the landfast ice in Alaska’s Arctic is forming later, breaking up earlier, and not reaching as far offshore. “So it’s sort of shrinking in time, and it’s shrinking in space as well.” Mahoney previousl