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    Alaska's Icy Seas
    Alaska's Icy Seas
    Alaska's Icy Seas
    Ebook79 pages49 minutes

    Alaska's Icy Seas

    By Charles Samuels

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    About this ebook

    This book is about sea-ice characteristics and coverage in Alaska’s arctic and sub-arctic seas and how it affects people and industry. Alaska’s arctic seas are essential for the economic well being of its residents. The primary factor limiting marine transportation in these areas is the presence of various types of sea-ice for most of the year.

    Activity in Alaska’s arctic is closely tied to the ebb and flow of the seasons and sea-ice coverage. Like the farmer who waits for the proper season to plant and harvest, the people of the arctic must also wait for the ice to “go out” before hunting walrus and other game on which they rely. Industry must also time its activities to the varying seasons and the growth and decay of the ice pack.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCharles Samuels
    Release dateJan 10, 2017
    ISBN9781370470242
    Alaska's Icy Seas

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      Book preview

      Alaska's Icy Seas - Charles Samuels

      COVER.jpg

      ALASKA’S ICY SEAS

      CHARLES B. SAMUELS

      Copyright © 2016 by Charles B Samuels No parts of this book may be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the author.

      Table of Contents

      Introduction

      Alaska's Seas

      Sea Ice Characteristics and Terminology

      Dynamics of Sea Ice

      Arctic Ocean Ice Pack

      The Shear Zone

      Weather, Ocean Currents, and Ice Motion

      Beginning of the Summer Season

      Breakup in the Beaufort Sea

      Camden Bay

      Prudhoe Bay

      The Chukchi Sea

      The Bering Strait

      The Bering Sea

      Norton Sound

      Bristol Bay

      Cook Inlet

      Remote Sensing of Sea Ice

      Oil production in Icy Waters

      Breakup Forecasts

      Ice Management

      Ancient Ice Coverage in the Arctic

      Publications

      ALASKA’S ICY SEAS

      CHARLES B. SAMUELS

      INTRODUCTION

      This book is about sea-ice characteristics and coverage in Alaska’s arctic and sub-arctic seas and how it affects people and industry. It is not a scientific treatise but rather an introduction to the subject for those who are interested in the arctic and would like more information about this fascinating phenomenon.

      ALASKA’S SEAS

      The two Arctic Ocean seas that adjoin the Alaska coast are the Beaufort, which lies off the northern coast and the Chukchi Sea off the northwest Alaska coast and the northern Siberian Russian coast. Both seas are completely covered by ice most of the year. The third Alaska Sea with substantial ice cover is the Bering Sea located southwest of the Alaska mainland. Ice covers about the northern third of the Bering Sea at its maximum extent.

      There are two main types of sea-ice: First Year Ice and, as its name implies, it has existed for less than a year. The other is Old Ice or Multi-year Ice and that means the ice has survived at least one summer season. We will discuss this in more detail later.

      These three seas have completely different ice regimes. The Beaufort Sea is extremely dynamic and is part of the main Arctic Ocean Ice pack. The Chukchi is a shallow sea with largely first-year ice. However, in some year’s ice remains along the Russian coast and in the northern part of the sea throughout the summer season. The Bering Sea has only First Year ice, which extends as far south as St Paul and St George Islands in the Pribilofs at its maximum extent.

      Figure 1. Alaska Seas.

      I first became interested in Arctic sea-ice in 1953 when I moved from Brownsville Texas to Nome Alaska where I worked for the U.S. Weather Bureau. Having been born and raised in Texas I had only rarely seen snow and never saw the ocean frozen over. So I was amazed to see people fishing through the ice.

      Nome is located on the Seward Peninsula, which forms the northern boundary of Norton Sound in the Bering Sea. The ice here is rather flat with a small rubble zone on the beach and is all First Year ice. The reason for the relative smoothness of the ice is that there are no large currents to break up the ice. However, west of Nome and out of the protection of the Seward Peninsula, the influence of the currents through Bering Strait creates a very different environment.

      In about 1959 a party of three Eskimo hunters from King Island, which is about 40 miles south of the Bering Strait, were trapped on ice that split off from the main pack and could not return to the island. Massive air searches tried to locate the men but were unable to find them. Conventional wisdom said the searchers should look to the north as the currents flowed in that direction, but Eskimo village elders convinced them to look to the south. After ten days they were finally found near St, Lawrence Island, almost 75 miles south of where they started. One man had died and the other two had body temperatures in the 60s. They survived but lost some toes.

      The ocean currents flowing through the narrow strait in spring and summer do indeed flow to the north bringing warm water to melt the ice, however, in winter,

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