Projected environmental change relevant to whaling activities in Utqiaġvik, Alaska

We want to first acknowledge residents of Utqiaġvik, Alaska who shared their knowledge about their environment and information about their traditional whaling practices. In particular, we thank Ana Fonongava’inga Stringer, whose work for her undergraduate honors thesis at Vanderbilt was the initial foundation for this study. AKD also wants to acknowledge and thank Richard Glenn, Andy Mahoney, and Melinda Webster for co-organizing the Sikumiut Field School in April 2025 at which many conversations about whaling activities occurred, as well as the Ukpeaġvik Iñupiat Corporation (UIC) bear guards who shared their environmental knowledge with the field school participants. All of this information was important to help guide the focus of this study. We also want to thank David Bonan for sharing code for calculating uncertainty partitions.This material is based upon work supported by the NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research (NSF NCAR), which is a major facility sponsored by NSF under Cooperative Agreement 1852977. The Community Earth System Model (CESM) project is supported primarily by NSF, and we thank all the scientists, software engineers, and administrators who contributed to the development of CESM. Computing and data storage resources were provided by the Computational and Information Systems Laboratory (CISL) at NSF NCAR.AKD wrote the main manuscript text and prepared the figures; she acknowledges support from the National Science Foundation (NSF) awards 1928119, 2103843, and 2333381. HB and RB helped formulate this study and provided feedback on the analysis and manuscript; they acknowledge support from NSF award 1928112. MMH, KK, and LL provide feedback on the analysis and manuscript; they acknowledge support from NSF awards 2103843 and 2040538. SL performed preliminary analysis and provided feedback on the manuscript; she acknowledges NSF award 1928112. TM performed interviews with Utqiaġvik residents and provided feedback on the manuscript; he acknowledges NSF awards 2103843 and 2536915. SS provided analysis of satellite data and feedback on the manuscript; she acknowledges NSF award 2333381 and the Sikumiut field school.

Authors and Affiliations

1. NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO, USA

   A. K. DuVivier, M. M. Holland, K. Krumhardt & L. Landrum

2. Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA

   H. Baroud, R. Bennartz & S. Lin

3. Haskell Indian Nations University, Lawrence, KS, USA

   T. Moore

4. University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, USA

   T. Moore

5. Institute for Arctic and Alpine Research, Boulder, CO, USA

   S. Stammerjohn

6. University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA

   S. Stammerjohn

Corresponding author

Correspondence to
A. K. DuVivier.

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

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