Barrow, Alaska, after an icy summer, has no hint of Arctic ice
on the horizon.… (Rick Loomis / Los Angeles…) BARROW, Alaska —
Here at the top of the world, the news that Arctic sea ice has
reached a new low — the smallest footprint since satellites
began measuring it three decades ago — is not much of a
surprise. The Arctic seas off the Alaska coast have been
increasingly ice-free in recent years. On Monday, the gray,
wind-driven surf churned vigorously along the northern coast,
with no sign of ice anywhere under the low, fog-shrouded skies.
But it has been a strange summer here. Until a few weeks ago,
there was more ice spread across the near-shore waters of the
Beaufort and Chukchi seas than anyone can remember for the last
several years — a curse for the engineers waiting to begin
plumbing oil wells into the sea floor, but a blessing for
Inupiat hunters, who have had an unusually easy time catching
seals from ice floes close to home. “It really seemed kind of
like it was back in the days when the ice was l