Big Ice on Alaskan Coast

(Barrow, Alaska) I learned a new word today. Ivu. Ivus are walls of ice that surge onto the coast like frozen tsunamis. The comparison to a tsunami is figurative rather than literal since ice moves much slower than water.

Anyway, ivus are in the news because two of them have slammed onto the northern Alaskan coastline this week. Automobile-sized ice cubes surged on shore, putting fear in the minds of hunters and residents. Barrow officials were caught by surprise by the phenomenon -- named "ivu" in the Inupiaq language.


Beaufort Sea ice pushed into Barrow, Alaska
(Photo - John Tidwell)
From Washingtonpost.com:

The ivus crashed ashore Tuesday after strong winds from Russia and eastward currents began pushing pack ice toward Barrow last weekend, said North Slope Borough disaster coordinator Rob Elkins.

By late Monday, thick, old sea ice known as multiyear ice had shoved younger, thinner ice onto shore.

Witnesses here said the northernmost ridge was about 20 feet high and 100 feet long and contained car-size blocks. Ice left a coastal road with only one lane, they said.

According to Lloyd Leavitt, a 49-year-old whaler and Barrow city administrator, the ice easily blocked a road 250 feet from the sea.

From News-Miner.com:

The ivu is the first since 1978 when ice pushed more than 450 feet inland, Barrow residents said. Leavitt said ivus happen every 30 to 40 years. There was another in 1976 and elders remember more in the 1950s. Leavitt said he spent part of his day allaying the fears of worried officials. He categorized the ivu as relatively minor considering what could have been.

He said much of the ice pushed ashore was first- or second-year ice--3 feet thick at most. If the sea around Barrow had been filled with multiyear ice, the push might have caused damage in the city of 4,500.

"As soon as (young ice) hits land, it breaks into small pieces," Leavitt said. "If it was 8- to 12-foot thick like we used to have before global warming, it would have been a problem."

Wait a minute! We've got a 49-year-old whaler and city administrator who is also a climatologist and expert on weather phenomena that occurs every 30 to 40 years? Huh? Besides being a genius, where does he find the time?

Nonetheless, our whaler-city administrator-climatologist-weather phenomena expert says that the ivu, a natural disaster, was mitigated by global warming. This means that the ivus were worse before President Bush created global warming. Just a guess, but I bet Bush won't get any credit. He should. After all, he got the blame for the Gulf Coast hurricanes and the Indian Ocean tsunami.

As an aside, for years I've had to contend with something akin to an ivu but on a much smaller scale. After shoveling my driveway clean of snow, the highway department snowplow invariably zips by and shushes a three-foot wall of ice and snow right across the entrance. It's guaranteed that I won't curse the snowplows any less, but I'll have a word to use in describing the wall blocking the driveway. An ivu.