This is scientific american60 Seconds of Science. I’m Emily Schwinn.
Emily Schwinn: In September, a major storm off Alaska’s west coast brought rough waters to the Bering Sea 17 miles inland, all the way to the village of Cup’ik in Chevak.
[Sounds of kids playing]
Davis Stone: The storm is crazy.
Schwinn: What’s so crazy?
stone: It flooded there like an ocean…
Sean Napoleon: It’s like an ocean!
stone: Some powers turned out, some people had to sleep in school for three days.
Schwinn: Just over 900 people live in this community. It sits on a high bank above the Ninglikfak River. Elder John B. Pinyack said the storm had shaken his resolve.
John Pinack: For three days I’ve been in turmoil as I finally realize how dangerous our situation is [is] in western Alaska. It is vulnerable to strong winds and water surges.
Schwinn: the impact of the storm, known as mermaid, is very true for thousands of rural residents of western Alaska. Dozens of villages suffered some degree of flooding. People lost power, causing freezers to thaw. The power outage destroyed months of food that people had stored up over the summer.
Food security in this part of the state is precarious. On top of thawed freezers, nearly all of the more than 90 boats people used to fish and hunt Chevak’s main food source were damaged or destroyed. Pingayak said the loss was devastating.
Pinyak: This is our survival. If I’m Cup’ik, survival is mine. This is me. That’s — survival is who I am, because I’m the one who goes out fishing. I was the one who went out to find my family. We do it for a living and to survive.
Clinton Slats: When the flood came, it was filled with water, and then it floated over and just sank in the river channel.
Schwinn: A few days after the storm, Clinton Slats reported his damage at Chevak’s community hall to two employees hired by the village’s tribal council to report the damage. He is not sure if he will be able to retrieve his boat from the bottom of the Ninglikfak river.
Slats: It’s hard to put into words how much it has affected us. There is no way for me to go hunting and gathering in a boat now with the rest of the season.
Schwinn: The storm didn’t just destroy boats and cars. Nearly a dozen fishing shacks containing everything from rifles to fishing nets, gas tanks and rain gear were destroyed. Some have completely disappeared from the banks.
Elsewhere in Alaska, summer fishing camps and hunting lodges were destroyed. Coastal erosion was severe as the storm reached Alaska before the ground froze over.
Rick Toman: So, of course, it’s easier to erode material that doesn’t even have any ice than to have the same storm help stabilize it, say, right now, where things have started to freeze.
Schwinn: That is Rick Tomana climate expert at the Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
Tommen: But warming oceans lead to longer periods of time before freezing begins. Again, this is something that is sure to continue into the future. ”
Schwinn: Conditions in the South Pacific this year are ripe for a storm like Merbok to form, he said.
Tommen: Historically, the waters in that part of the subtropical Pacific have not been warm enough to support the development of typhoons. But much of the subtropical Pacific east of Japan has been much warmer than usual this year. Some regions are the warmest on record.
Schwinn: This storm is rare. Alaska hasn’t seen anything like it in 50 years. In addition to the flooding, dozens of rural communities suffered damage to infrastructure. Many scientists, including Toman, believe the storm, which originated as a typhoon in the Pacific Northwest, is a harbinger of what climate change might bring to the northernmost U.S. state in the coming years.
Tommen: Of course, we know that a big factor in the increased impact is not more storms, but storms that come when there is no sea ice.
Schwinn: As the coldest months of winter descend on Alaska, there is currently no significant shore-secured sea ice along Alaska’s Bering Sea coast or farther north along the southern Chukchi Sea coastline, except near estuaries. In recent years, this phenomenon has become the norm.
Tommen: In the 20th century, there will be sea ice for protection or as a buffer or wave buffer. As it disappears, the impact increases.
Schwinn: After developing into a powerful typhoon, Melbork moved north and east toward Alaska. In doing so, it becomes something that meteorologists don’t even know the words for. Some call it the “remnant” of a typhoon. Toman calls it the “front wind.” But that language doesn’t do it justice when it describes its power or its vastness. When it hit Alaska, it tripled in size alone.
Tommen: Over the long term, there isn’t any good, conclusive evidence that these storms are increasing in intensity. But I think the context in which they’re working — a warmer environment, a less freezing environment — is really the driver of the effect.
Schwinn: Residents in dozens of communities in western Alaska continued to repair damaged homes and outbuildings and apply for disaster assistance through FEMA, the state and other organizations. What Merbok exposed was their vulnerability and the extreme need to improve and strengthen infrastructure as storms like these became the new normal for the region.
For 60 Seconds Science, I’m Emily Schwing.
