Like Trying to Hide the Daylight From the Sun

Some Alaskan permafrost tumbles into the ocean.

USGS

It has become a staple for news coverage of natural disasters: shocked residents, standing among the wreckage, promising to rebuild. But as climate change and sea level rise are permanently altering the landscape, it may not make sense to rebuild in precisely the same location. That reality has already arrived for many communities in northern Alaska, where the vanishing sea ice and permafrost have left entire towns at risk of being washed away. If the experience of those residents is anything to go by, we're woefully unprepared for the new reality.

A paper that will be released by PNAS details the challenges of what its authors call "climigration," the forced relocation of entire communities to safer ground. To date, the process has faced enormous hurdles, partially because there is simply no legislation that allows government agencies to pay for or coordinate the process—or even certify that it's conforming to federal regulations. At least partly as a result, the communities the researchers examined are still stuck in their deteriorating infrastructure.

A number of factors combined to make the native towns of northern Alaska exceptionally vulnerable to climate change. Originally, the area's inhabitants moved among locations with the changing seasons, which limited the amount of infrastructure in any one place. But mandatory education meant that communities coalesced around the sites where the state built schools. Since the schools were built with material brought to the area by barge, this mostly led to small towns built along the coast. These areas remained reliant on barges for fuel and other supplies.