Matt Druckenmiller tows a sled over sea ice in Barrow this spring. His sled contained instruments that measured the thickness of the ice.

Photo courtesy Hajo Eicken.

As the northern end of the globe nods away from the sun at fall equinox, the amount of sea ice floating on the northern oceans is now at the lowest amount ever detected by satellites, a period that goes back to 1979. This new sea-ice minimum follows an extremely cold Alaska winter that led to the formation of thick ice off the northern coast. In spring 2012, it looked like old times for ice floating off northern Alaska.

From left, Erin McQuin of Snohomish, Washington, instructor Marijke Habermann, a graduate student at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, and Heather Gregory of Anchorage. Habermann had just helped the girls cross a Gulkana Glacier stream on their way back down the glacier after being stuck at a higher camp for an extra night due to a storm. The streams and the glacier were slippery that day after more than 36 hours of continuous rainfall.

Photo by Joanna Young.

This summer, the Girls on Ice program visited an Alaska glacier for the first time. It probably won’t be the last, said organizer Joanna Young.

“We talked about how the girls would be inspired, but we didn’t count on how much we would be inspired,” said Young, a graduate student in the College of Natural Science and Mathematics at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. In July, she, two other grad students, and a mountaineer led nine teenage girls onto Gulkana Glacier for eight days of science and life on ice.

A UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter from the Alaska Army National Guard prepares to drop off members of the 3rd Aircraft Maintenance Squadron's Crash Recover team on Colony Glacier, Alaska on July 10, 2012.

US Army photo/Staff Sgt. Brehl Garza.

It’s not often that glaciologists help with the recovery of long-lost human remains, but military officials recently enlisted Martin Truffer for that purpose. The University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute professor and graduate student Dave Podrasky came up with useful information on a Southcentral glacier that held plane wreckage and the remains of military men killed in a crash 60 years ago.

A UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter from the Alaska Army National Guard prepares to drop off members of the 3rd Aircraft Maintenance Squadron's Crash Recover team on Colony Glacier, Alaska on July 10, 2012.

US Army photo/Staff Sgt. Brehl Garza.

It’s not often that glaciologists help with the recovery of long-lost human remains, but military officials recently enlisted Martin Truffer for that purpose. The University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute professor and graduate student Dave Podrasky came up with useful information on a Southcentral glacier that held plane wreckage and the remains of military men killed in a crash 60 years ago.