Shishmaref's coast has been eroding for years, but permafrost melt and thawing sea ice are making the shore more susceptible to erosion. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers projects the sea will continue to eat its way into the town. CNN

By John D. Sutter, CNN
December 3, 2009 3:39 a.m. EST Shishmaref, Alaska (CNN) — When the arctic winds howl and angry waves pummel the shore of this Inupiat Eskimo village, Shelton and Clara Kokeok fear that their house, already at the edge of the Earth, finally may plunge into the gray sea below. “The land is going away,” said Shelton Kokeok, 65, whose home is on the tip of a bluff that’s been melting in part because of climate change. “I think it’s going to vanish one of these days.” Coastal erosion has been an issue for decades here, but rising global temperatures have started to thaw the permafrost that once helped anchor this village in place. Sea ice that protects Shishmaref’s coast from erosion melts earlier in the spring and forms later in the fall. As a result, the increasingly mushy and exposed soil along Shishmaref’s shore is falling into the water in snowmobile-sized chunks. The crumbling land already toppled one house into the sea. Thirteen other homes — nearly all of the Kokeoks’ neighbors — had to be moved inland. The land they stood on washed away. Now the Kokeoks’ wooden residence, which Shelton built by hand 20 years ago, stands alone — only feet from the edge of this barrier island. …  They’re not alone. A dozen Alaskan villages, including Shishmaref, are at some stage of moving because of climate-change-related impacts like coastal erosion and flooding. … A 2009 Government Accountability Office report [pdf] found that 31 Alaskan villages face “imminent threats” because of coastal erosion, flooding and climate change. At least 12 are at some stage in the relocation process. …

Climate change threatens life in Shishmaref, Alaska via The Oil Drum