Shorefast Ice Breaks Off in Nome

Observation by Nick Treinen:

A lead opened up on 3/9/2018 around 200 yards from shore and continued to grow over the next days as the ice sheet broke up and departed. The breakup of shore-fast ice historically occurs no earlier than May, but follows similar events earlier this winter in Shishmaref, St. Lawrence Island, Diomede, Wales and elsewhere in the Bering Sea region. Many commercial and subsistence crabbers (myself included) have lost their pots on the ice, and several miners lost property as well. The open water reportedly continues for dozens of miles along the coast.

Rick Thoman, Climate Scientist at the Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy, writes:

Persistent south to southeast winds through much of February and the first week of March broke up ice in southern Norton Sound and pushed that ice toward to Seward Peninsula. As winds turned to more of a northeast to northerly direction during the second week of March, the ice moved south into nearly open water. In spite of colder than average temperatures during December and early January, it is likely that warm ocean temperatures played a significant role in keeping ice unusually thin, so that when the persistently stormy pattern commenced in late January the ice was more easily broken up and melted.

Comments from LEO Editors:

Unusual ice conditions were a factor in the recent rescue of three men trapped on an ice floe off the coast of Nome. Anchorage Daily News reported that the men were attempting to recover expensive gold mining equipment threatened by open water and moving ice. Although the men were rescued by helicopter after the ice detached from the shore, an estimated $10,000 worth of mining equipment was lost. Erica Lujan