Alaska

Under pressure: Arctic trends sparking extreme weather at large

Posted 12 June 2013 by Liz O'Connell

Laura Nielsen for Frontier Scientists In September 2012, at the end of last summer, the Arctic sea ice extent reached a record low since satellite measurements began. And, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, summer sea ice extent in the Arctic has declined roughly 40 percent in the last three decades. The Arctic is warming faster than other parts of the planet. This enhanced warming is called Arctic Amplification. It may seem like a far-away problem to... Read more

Posted in Climate Change Watch, Computational Science, Weather in Alaska |

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Eyes on Columbia Glacier’s retreat

Posted 22 May 2013 by Liz O'Connell

Laura Nielsen for Frontier Scientists The Landsat mission, a joint effort between the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), has been collecting data on Earth's physical features via satellite since the 1970s. "The Landsat data record -- humanity's longest continuous record of our planet from space -- has been an invaluable tool for scientists and decision-makers in many fields, from natural resources to agricultural productivity and climate change."* Now, the Landsat mission has joined with Google Earth... Read more

Posted in Climate Change Watch, General, Modeling Arctic Waters |

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Big booms over the northland

Posted 30 April 2013 by Liz O'Connell

by Ned Rozell Near a small village in Russia, Marina Ivanova stepped into cross-country skis and kicked toward a hole in the snow. The meteorite specialist with the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History and Vernadsky Institute in Moscow was hunting for fragments of the great Chelyabinsk Meteorite that exploded three days earlier. This search was different from others. Ivanova has looked for metallic stones on the world’s great deserts and in Antarctica, places where heavenly rocks stand out because of... Read more

Posted in Arctic Archaeology, Computational Science, General |

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VIIRS as an Arctic Nightlight

Posted 16 April 2013 by Liz O'Connell

by Liz O'Connell for Frontier Scientists During winter in the Arctic it’s “night” almost all the time, but thanks to the new Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) Day/Night Band (DNB) we no longer have to be in the dark about what’s going on with the weather. Here is a VIIRS/DNB image of the Alaska region on December 31, 2012 generated by GINA, Geographic Information Network of Alaska, at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Although it looks like a typical... Read more

Posted in AGU Fall Meeting, General, Weather in Alaska |

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Burned Alaska may cause more burned Alaska

Posted 10 April 2013 by Liz O'Connell

by Ned Rozell The blackened scars that Alaska fires leave on the landscape may result in more lightning, more rain in some areas just downwind of the scars, and less rain farther away, according to two scientists. Nicole Mölders and Gerhard Kramm, both of the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, study how changes in landscapes affect the weather. After Alaska’s fire season in 2004, when smoke befouled much of the air Alaskans breathed and a collective area... Read more

Posted in Climate Change Watch, Weather in Alaska |

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AAA Conference Gives Life to Ancient Stories and New Revelations

Posted 26 March 2013 by Liz O'Connell

Liz O'Connell for Frontier Scientists “Ancient ice is melting and yielding many things we haven’t seen before,” said Jeanne Schaaf, National Park Service archaeologist, at the Alaska Archaeological Association Conference in Anchorage. Three antler arrow points, rare organic artifacts of a type not seen in the area previously, were found at two remnant ice patches in the Telaquana Mountain area, in Lake Clark National Park and Preserve. Radiocarbon ages of the artifacts are 152, 1667 and 1,977 years before... Read more

Posted in Arctic Archaeology, Conference, Upward Sun River |

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Arctic Volcanism Helps Date Ancient Archaeological Sites

Posted 13 March 2013 by Liz O'Connell

By Liz O'Connell for Frontier Scientists “By dating ash,” said Richard Vanderhoek, “an archaeological site in Alaska, can be placed on a chronostratographic timeline.” Or in other words: the chemical makeup of the ash, matched with a volcano eruption, will provide an approximate date of the site. Archaeologists worldwide have dated ancient sites for the last half century in this manner. Vanderhoek wants to consider not just the timing of the catastrophic event, but the ecological and cultural impacts on... Read more

Posted in Arctic Archaeology, Cook Inlet Volcanoes, General, Understanding Climate Change Through Archaeology |

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A Walrus at the Edge of the Ice

Posted 13 February 2013 by Liz O'Connell

Laura Nielsen for Frontier Scientists Sea ice is the foundation of an entire Arctic ecosystem. Algae flourishes where the ice is active, providing sustenance for hordes of zooplankton. Birds feed on schools of small fish sustained by the zooplankton. There are species of seabirds which live here and nowhere else, and others whose natural rhythms are dictated by presence or absence of ice. Fish populations support a variety of seals and larger fish. Bowhead whales filter-feed on tiny zooplankton, while... Read more

Posted in AGU Fall Meeting, Alaska's Unmanned Aircraft ResearchAdd category, Climate Change Watch, Modeling Arctic Waters |

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Carbon in permafrost and tomorrow’s atmosphere

Posted 6 February 2013 by Liz O'Connell

Laura Nielsen for Frontier Scientists Carbon is the building block of life. Our knowledge of current climate change, however, has us counting how much carbon enters the atmosphere. We burn fossil fuels, adding anthropogenic (human-caused) carbon dioxide to the air. Meanwhile, natural processes also add carbon to the air. We know that methane can arise from warming lakes and oceans. Methane traps heat roughly twenty times as efficiently as does carbon dioxide. Methane and carbon dioxide are also hiding in permafrost, the... Read more

Posted in AGU Fall Meeting, Climate Change Watch, Permafrost |

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Bison Bob a big discovery on the North Slope

Posted 29 January 2013 by Liz O'Connell

by Ned Rozell As she scraped cold dirt from the remains of an extinct bison, Pam Groves wrinkled her nose at a rotten-egg smell wafting from gristle that still clung to the animal’s bones. She lifted her head to scan the horizon, wary of bears that might be attracted to the flesh of a creature that gasped its last breath 40,000 years ago. In the type of discovery they have dreamed about for years, Groves and Dan Mann, both researchers... Read more

Posted in Arctic Archaeology, Understanding Climate Change Through Archaeology, Upward Sun River |

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