The ocean off Utqiaġvik is covered with ragged ice ridges in early April. Iñupiat whalers build trails across the blue and white terrain to get to their hunting sites. It's hard to imagine a better spot for studying sea ice.
That's why a group of 20 specialists gathered there earlier this month for the Sikumiut Field School, a week-long workshop funded by the National Science Foundation. Some participants were scientists working with climate models or satellite data. Others were residents from different parts of the Arctic — people with hands-on knowledge about when the ice is safe for travel.
"The whole idea was to bring all these experts together to learn from one another about sea ice," said Melinda Webster, a researcher at the Geophysical Institute of the University of Alaska Fairbanks, who helped organize the event. "The amount of generous sharing that there was in both storytelling and knowledge – it was phenomenal."
Participants spent mornings in a classroom, running models and looking at satellite and radar data. Afternoons were spent out on the actual ice, observing its features and learning to use instruments to measure it.
It's important work, especially because sea ice in the Arctic was at a record low this winter, according to research released earlier this month from the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
Acting as a thermal buffer, sea ice limits how much heat and moisture the Earth loses, said Erin Emily Thomas, who works as a sea ice modeler at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
"The sea ice is changing very rapidly," Thomas said. "Maybe in the near future, there will be very little sea ice to go out on. And so I think it's really important to study this now, while we have the chance."
For Thomas, who lives in New Mexico, this was her first time observing sea ice in person. She said the experience reminded her of how dynamic the system is, and how imperfect the modern models are at simulating it.
"The sea ice is way more complex than what we're able to capture," she said. "It just gives me the motivation to keep improving our models."
Nome hunter Terry Komonaseak said that during the event, he shared his stories about traveling – and even falling though – the sea ice. He also talked about how he's seen ice conditions change over the years – something he noted on a hunting trip a year before last.
"I couldn't believe how different that ice is compared to other years," he said. "It's so strange to see how it actually looks so small, like it shrunk, like it's non-existent."
One of the organizers was Savik Richard Glenn, an Iñupiaq hunter, geologist and a former executive at the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation. He said the workshop's hands-on activities included checking ice thickness, watching for changes and looking at the way snow and ice interact.
"Every day we witnessed change," Glenn said. "The little pieces of evidence that give you an idea about safety, about how prone the the ice might be to movement, either breaking off and floating away — or ridging up and and grounding itself into the sea floor and potentially changing or covering up the tracks of your trail, if it's a major storm event."
Glenn said that participants asked local whaling captains for permission to use their whaling trails, and they helped improve them.
"We tried to behave as if we were neighbors with the folks who depend on the ice for subsistence," he said.
Komonaseak, the hunter from Nome, said he enjoyed meeting scientists and locals during the workshop and is planning to keep in touch with some of them.
"We are hoping that we will eventually get back together on the same subject and probably in the same place," he said.