The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced on Tuesday that it will defund a program that catalogs decades of sea ice data in Alaska. Scientists say the program's termination could create a gap in climate research at a time when polar ice is dwindling to historic lows.
Rick Thoman, a climate specialist at the Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy in Fairbanks, is among them. On Tuesday, just a couple hours after he got the news about the program cuts, he was taking a tour group past an art installation about sea ice at the International Arctic Research Center.
The installation is in a long hallway at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, covered with vertical stripes in shades of blue and red. Thoman explained that bluer stripes mean the temperature was cooler than the 100-plus year average, while red stripes were warmer than average.
At the end of the hallway, the stripes stop. The years from about 2000 until the present day blend together, forming a solid block of scarlet.
A guest asked Thoman what changed, and his answer was simple: less ice means higher temperatures.
"A lot of what's driving this is the collapse of sea ice," he said. "Both decreased extent and the thinning of sea ice — and, of course, increasing greenhouse gasses.
That long-term Arctic temperature data is safe, but the United States' premier catalog of sea ice data — NOAA's sea ice index — isn't. The organization announced earlier this week that it will decommission the program, and the index stopped updating on May 6.
That development came as a shock to climate specialist Rick Thoman, but it comes after many other NOAA cuts this year. According to an internal budget document, the Trump administration is seeking to end nearly all of the agency's climate research.
The termination of the index is one chapter in a long series of cuts the White House has made — or proposed — in recent months. February saw hundreds of probationary jobs slashed. And April saw a request for sweeping cuts to research funding.
It also follows an Alaska Climate Research Center report that said Arctic sea ice has been at or near record low levels since December, with 58,000 square miles fewer than the previous record low, which was set in 2017.
Scientists and barges left without a map
Hajo Eicken, director of the International Arctic Research Center at UAF, said the loss of the ice index could greatly impact the lives and livelihoods of coastal Alaskans. For example, it could make it harder for people to know the best time to schedule the barges that resupply communities off the road system.
"All of that type of activity relies on the sea ice information that gives you a sense of what's normal," Eicken said. "Like, what can we expect for a particular year?"
And Thoman said the scientific community will mourn the loss of the sea ice index, which he uses for his own research all the time. He said he used fresh ice data from the Bering, Chukchi, and Beaufort seas every day, which allowed him to track how things are changing relative to previous years.
Thoman said other global sea ice monitoring programs, like those in Europe and Japan, could pick up the slack. But the loss of the NOAA-funded sea ice index, which he calls "the gold standard," will sting.
"When people ask me, 'What does the sea ice concentration look like in the Bering Sea? What's the ice extent now compared to last year in the short term?' The answer is going to be: 'We don't know,'" he said.
NOAA officials did not respond to a request for comment by press time Wednesday.
