Utqiagvik, Alaska, America’s northernmost town, has warmed more than 5C in the past century – and dramatically so in the last five years.
Before 2016 the remote community had only seen one year with an average temperature above 16C. Since then the town has exceeded that threshold each year.
The impact is felt keenly, as The Telegraph's US Correspondent Jamie Johnson has discovered.
Disappearing sea ice makes hunting bowhead whale – locals' main source of food – much harder because the whales are not so easily grounded on ice. Residents are now turning more towards eating caribou.
Utqiagvik also endured the wettest summer on record last year. Rain thawed the ground several feet deeper than normal, past the “active” layer of permafrost, which is normally frozen year-round. It meant that the infrastructure that's normally stuck immobile within the permafrost — water lines, telephone poles and house pilings — all began pushing up out of the ground.
Read more: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2021/10/31/thin-ice-thawing-freezers-whaling-threatened-inside-alaskan/
#Utqiagvik #Alaska #climatechange #cop26
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