With homes dilapidating, shores eroding and staircases falling off the houses, Point Lay residents are living through some of the most severe consequences of the warming climate in Alaska.

Multiple buildings and homes, including the Point Lay clinic, were without water. The water main break was a result of the water main sinking down further into the permafrost.

The Arctic Sounder - Serving the Northwest Arctic and the North Slope

Sea ice in the Chukchi Sea disappeared far earlier than normal this spring as a result of exceptionally warm ocean temperatures.

Walruses over the last decade have come to shore on the Alaska and Russia sides of the Chukchi Sea as sea ice diminishes because of global warming.

Dozens of walruses were found dead earlier this month at their seasonal haulout near Point Lay. The findings came just about a day after locals said they saw an airplane they believed to be flying inappropriately over the herd, which comes to shore each year once the sea ice recedes past the continental shelf and it becomes too deep for them to feed.

The Arctic barrier island where the carcasses were found has emerged as a favored end-of-summer haulout for animals trying to survive without summer sea ice.

Several hundred Pacific walruses have started to gather on an island off the northwest coast of Alaska — the earliest the animals have been observed leaving the water for the annual ritual, according to federal wildlife officials.

Hundreds of Pacific walruses came ashore to a barrier island on Alaska's northwest coast, the earliest appearance of the animals in a phenomenon tied to climate warming and diminished Arctic Ocean sea ice.

State and North Slope Borough officials say Point Lay’s drinking water lake was wiped out by the nearby Kokolik River, which flooded and eroded the lake banks.

Pacific walruses are beaching on Northwest Alaska shores, peppered with bleeding skin legions that have been observed on dying ringed seals in Arctic Alaska, according to federal biologists.