This research investigated the potential use and application of radar, satellite, and other tracking data for sea ice and weather conditions in maritime-related Search and Research (SAR) operations in the Arctic. Specifically, this study analyzed a SAR event for a missing small vessel due into Utqiaġvik (formerly, Barrow), Alaska in July 2017 as well as archival records of U.S. Coast Guard SAR incidents in Arctic Alaska between 1976 and present. This study feeds into the Arctic Domain Awareness Center (ADAC) funded project - Developing sea ice and weather forecasting tools to improve situational awareness and crisis response in the Arctic - which seeks to create a prototype early warning sea ice and weather forecasting module for hazard planning in Utqiaġvik. This research found that data availability and accessibility, particularly in low bandwidth and further offshore areas, are challenges to data uptake during a SAR event. Nonetheless, the specific SAR incident in Utqiaġvik helped to illuminate there is a breadth of tools that can be applied and used in a SAR context - traditional and knowledge, modeling data, and USCG operational data. Specifically, modeling data from tools developed by the Arctic Domain Awareness Center (ADAC), the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) and other research institutions was generated during this event to help support the local SAR effort. However, a level of pre- or post-processing was necessary in many cases, which can be a challenge for when data is needed immediately. This research holds implications for future use and uptake of modeling data in local SAR operations in Arctic Alaska and potentially the Arctic overall. Given that local SAR operators are predominantly the first line of response to maritime emergencies in Arctic Alaska, the ability to share and provide a set of resources to support SAR operators can be beneficial, particularly in a rapidly changing Arctic. A more targeted and systematic way to utilize and draw upon scientific research for SAR operations can potentially support the local SAR community, especially when immediate information is necessary. In particular, leveraging different products to validate, interpolate, and extrapolate information against one another, can help create more comprehensive situational awareness, especially for further offshore SAR events.

Reliable, high-resolution sea ice forecasts may help contribute to safety of Indigenous marine mammal hunting and community travel in the Arctic. At the same time, sea ice forecasts could also be useful predictors of seasonal harvest success, including potential harvest shortfalls with impacts at the community level. However, large scale measures of sea ice concentration and ice extent are not sufficient indicators for predicting marine mammal harvest success in Bering Strait communities. Weekly sea ice and weather forecasts for Alaskan communities in the Bering Strait were analyzed from the Sea Ice for Walrus Outlook (SIWO) to identify sea ice and weather thresholds that greatly affected Indigenous marine mammal hunting activity and access to marine mammals during the spring harvest. The forecast of the timing for ice-free waters around a coastal community generally aligned with local observations. However some hunters continued to hunt by traveling longer distances from shore to reach marine mammals. This emphasizes the importance of maintaining coastal and marine forecasts even when coastal areas around communities appear ice-free. It was also apparent that while wind forecasts generally predicted the local wind conditions that were observed, the forecasts sometimes omitted important changes in wind direction, speed or ice movement, that occasionally resulted in ocean and ice conditions that required local search and rescue efforts or left hunters “stuck in the ice” overnight. The use of seasonal sea ice forecasts from models have not yet been explored with community partners as a potential tool to plan for upcoming subsistence hunting seasons, although the current use of SIWO is recognized as a tool to record hunter observations in “our words and descriptions” for current events and for future use and analysis. An evaluation of the Sea Ice for Walrus Outlook is being conducted, and the results of this new study will be useful to support future development of forecast information, and avenues for sharing of timely community observations.