(SitNews) - Researchers have launched a pilot project to collect new data about the severe winter storms that are slowly claiming several erosion-ravaged Northwest Alaska villages.

Nick Konefal, a research engineer at the Alaska Center for Energy and Power, deployed storm-surge sensors in the past several weeks in the communities of Kivalina, Shaktoolik and Shishmaref. All three villages are threatened by coastal erosion, much of it caused when winter storms push powerful waves onto shore.

Climate change and shrinking sea ice have been blamed for boosting the frequency of winter storms, but specific data is limited. Through the Rapid Deployment Inundation Platforms project, researchers hope to better understand the amount of surging water that reaches land and its effect on local erosion.

“These are small communities, and they know every square inch of the land,” Konefal said. “If you talk to locals they say the storms are getting bigger, but there’s not a lot of data out there.”

Tripod-mounted sensors were planted near the water line in each community, and will be activated to collect data during the peak winter storm months of October, November and December. The Alaska Ocean Observing System project is being managed by ACEP and organizations in each village.

If the data collected this season is useful, researchers would like to add sensors in coastal lagoons and upgrade to more sophisticated equipment in future winters, Konefal said.

Konefal said the ultimate goal of the project is to better predict winter storms and their potential for damage.

“If the storms are getting bigger, we want to know what’s happening,” he said.

Representations of fact and opinions in comments posted are solely those of the individual posters and do not represent the opinions of Sitnews.

SitNews ©2017
Stories In The News
Ketchikan, Alaska

Articles & photographs that appear in SitNews may be protected by copyright and may not be reprinted without written permission from and payment of any required fees to the proper sources. E-mail your news & photos to editor@sitnews.us Photographers choosing to submit photographs for publication to SitNews are in doing so granting their permission for publication and for archiving. SitNews does not sell photographs. All requests for purchasing a photograph will be emailed to the photographer.