In April, the border between Nome’s sandy beaches and the Bering Sea is invisible, covered by feet of frozen water and snow. Throughout the day, crabbers can be spotted darting across the ice on snowmachines, plopping giant metal crab pots into holes in the white expanse. They return every few days to check on their haul.
In May, over 17 hours of daylight will melt what’s left of the sea ice. Big chunks will drift and collide until they’re whittled down to nothing.
As the sea ice forms in the fall and melts in the spring, commercial crabbers like Katie Hannon say it's crucial to know when the ice is safe to travel on.
“It's been a challenging season. This year we lost five crab pots to that first storm that we had when the ice blew out,” Hannon said.
She said the lost pots cost $200 a piece. Hannon and her husband Marty Lewis run a commercial crab business in Nome. She said she holds respect for the ice, knowing it provides for her family but also poses a big safety risk.
“There were seasons where we’ve seen people get blown out on the ice with their snowmachines and their crab gear,” she said.
The sea ice is used by commercial crabbers like Hannon and Lewis, along with subsistence users and others traveling from village to village by snowmachine.
A new tool hopes to support all users of the sea ice in Western Alaska. The model, created by a team based in Michigan, forecasts 72 hours of sea ice movement.
While a similar model existed before, it had a resolution of five kilometers –as wide as Nome’s entire waterfront– meaning the entire shoreline was essentially one pixel on the map. An upgraded model improves the resolution from five kilometers to 1.5, a threefold increase.
Ayumi Fujisaki-Manome is a researcher at the University of Michigan's Cooperative Institute for Great Lakes Research (CIGLR). The institute has studied ice movement on the Great Lakes for nearly two decades, and is applying what its learned to the Bering Sea.
Fujisaki-Manome said the project is trying to improve both the science behind the forecast and the way that information reaches the public.
“This is really for helping support people's decisions for local communities. And it's not just about the design of the model itself, but also how we deliver the information,” Fujisaki-Manome said.
A sample Norton Sound sea ice forecast produced by the University of Michigan’s Cooperative Institute for Great Lakes Research and NOAA’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Lab.
Crafting the forecast itself is relatively automated. A computer pulls the latest satellite and buoy data, runs a model, and exports an animation to the project's website. And Fujisaki-Manome said early evaluations show the model is doing “pretty good” in terms of accuracy.
Now, the team is focused on improving the user experience. In February, Fujisaki-Manome and co-researcher John McLure traveled to Gambell and Savoonga on St. Lawrence Island to get direct feedback on the tool.
“It was a real pleasure just to be able to get out there and actually be talking to people and learning from them, it was a real honor,” McLure said.
McLure said the feedback revealed that a website alone was not enough. Locals told of the many ways sea ice conditions are shared including VHF radio and social media.
Ukallaysaaq Okleasik of Northwest Planning, LLC has supported the CIGLR team’s outreach efforts in the region. He said he was pleased with how the Gambell and Savoonga meetings went and how quickly the research team has responded to input.
“I really appreciate the CIGLR team for making some quick changes based on the workshops in Savoonga and Gambell, hearing ideas and immediately going back and updating their website,” Okleasik said.
Okleasik said in addition to community input at the meetings, CIGLR has convened a panel of Gerald Oxereok of Wales, Edwin Noongwook of Savoonga, Orlin Booshu Sr of Gambell and Bivers Gologergen of Nome. Okleasik said the group of knowledgeable subsistence users will help further refine the project.
“An important piece of this workshop is to look at Indigenous sea ice knowledge and ask questions like, ‘How can Inuit sea ice knowledge and real time observations better supplement agency sea ice forecasts and these monitoring tools? How can we ensure that sea ice tools and forecasts actively honor and reflect Inuit cultures?’ ” Okleasik said.
The forecast model is one of many sea ice projects in the region, but it will run out of funding in July 2027. McLure said integrating with another system like the National Weather Service’s Alaska Sea Ice Program might be imperative to the tool’s survival. Currently, the weather service’s Sea Ice Forecast product is text-only, whereas the CIGLR tool is a colorful animated map.
The team is hosting another workshop in Nome April 16 and 17, where more feedback will be collected. The event runs from 1 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. Thursday and between 8:30 a.m. and 1 p.m. Friday at the Northwest Campus Grand Hall.
