Global Warming in Alaska
Alaska salmon may bear scars of global warming - 06/15/08
More Alaskan salmon caught here end up in the dog pot these days, their orange-pink flesh fouled by disease that scientists have correlated with warmer water in the Yukon River.
The sorting of winners and losers at Moore's riverbank fish camp illustrates what scientists have been predicting will accompany global warming: Cold-temperature barriers are giving way, allowing parasites, bacteria and other disease-spreading organisms to move toward higher latitudes.
"Climate change isn't going to increase infectious diseases but change the disease landscape," said marine ecologist Kevin D. Lafferty, who studies parasites for the U.S. Geological Survey. "And some of these surprises are not going to be pretty."
Fishermen and regulators who have cooperated to save species from overfishing and local environmental hazards have been caught unprepared to deal with forces beyond their control: how to manage a fishery for climate change.
Salmon jerky strips are a staple among the Native Americans and subsistence fishermen in rural outposts such as Tanana, a village of 270 people. "It'll keep you warm in the winter," said Lorene Moore, Pat's wife and a native of the village. In Alaska's bigger cities, these strips are a prized delicacy, fetching $20 or more a pound.
Scientists dig into Alaska tundra's effect on warming - 08/10/08
Ground here that for tens of thousands of years was frozen solid is terra firma no more. Across the tundra and coast of the Arctic Ocean, land is caving in. Soils loosed by freshly thawed earth set off a new era of rot, and of bloom -- dumping a bonanza of nutrients into this top-of-the-world environment.
Scientists flock here, to the northern foothills of the Brooks Range, to find out and to guess at the planet's future. They sample water from streams and ponds, tag fish and mark their growth, count creepy crawlies squirming in clumps of moss, watch the grass and bushes grow.
"I'm really glad it's getting warm and not cold. An ice age would be really bad," said Chris Luecke, a fish biologist from Utah State University who first traveled to the Arctic as a University of Kansas graduate student in the 1970s.
The analyses are still taking shape, and they don't yet clearly reveal whether a warming tundra mellows out climate fluctuations or revs them up.
Alaska Spending Millions to Relocate Villages Affected by Climate Change - 06/13/08
Tribal leaders in the tiny coastal community of Newtok will now be able to begin building a barge landing at their new site to bring in building materials and, wherever possible, existing structures from their storm-battered village nine miles to the north.
The bulk of the $3.3 million, however, will go toward the design and possible partial construction of a road from the barge landing to a planned evacuation center.
The Yupik Eskimo community of 400 is among six remote villages tapped by the state for immediate attention because they are highly vulnerable to escalating erosion, storms and flooding linked to global warming. The state is investing nearly $13 million to protect the villages in the coming year.
The last thing anyone wanted to do was have a big flooding event and lose a life, or have a fuel tank fall into the ocean, or lose an airport in one of these communities not on the road system," said Environmental Conservation Commissioner Larry Hartig, who chairs a climate change subcabinet established last year by Gov. Sarah Palin.
Erosion and flooding affect 184 - or 86 percent - of 213 Alaska Native villages to some degree, according to a 2003 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office. A handful are facing imminent relocations.
