By Frances Beinecke28 March 2014 (Washington Post) – Twenty-five years ago this month, the Exxon Valdez struck a reef in Alaska’s Prince William Sound and dumped 11 million gallons of crude oil into the water. The public was shocked by photos of oil-soaked otters and reports that coastal residents had lost their livelihoods. The cleanup effort […]
By Gregor Waschinski 9 hours ago Washington (AFP) – On a cold March night 25 years ago, the supertanker Exxon Valdez struck a reef off the coast of Alaska, spilling 11 million gallons of crude oil into the sea. Images of oil-soaked birds and fouled beaches horrified the United States, leading to tighter regulation and […]
By Ryan Koronowski 4 March 2014 (Climate Progress) – The Iditarod, the annual sled-dog race across 975 miles of Alaska, started in earnest on Sunday. While much of the local buzz is on whether the usual strong slate of Alaskan mushers can hold off the Norwegians, much of the attention has turned to how the […]
By Sam Carana4 February 2014 (Arctic News) – While much of the continental United States endured several cold snaps in January 2014, record-breaking warmth gripped Alaska. Spring-like conditions set rivers rising and avalanches tumbling. NASA Earth Observatory illustrates these words with the image above. The above map depicts land surface temperature anomalies in Alaska for […]
Contact: Nick Manning, University of Waterloo, 519-888-4451, 226-929-76273 February 2014 (University of Waterloo) – Arctic lakes have been freezing up later in the year and thawing earlier, creating a winter ice season about 24 days shorter than it was in 1950, a University of Waterloo study has found. The research, sponsored by the European Space […]
By Elizabeth Weise 28 December 2013 (USATODAY) – Something is killing starfish up and down the West Coast and no one knows what. A mysterious illness that first appeared in June in Washington state has now spread from Sitka, Alaska, to San Diego. Starfish first waste away and then “turn into goo,” divers say. Whatever […]
By Cheryl Pellerin26 November 2013 WASHINGTON (American Forces Press Service) – The effects of climate change are already evident at Defense Department installations in the United States and overseas, and DOD expects climate change to challenge its ability to fulfill its mission in the future, according to the first DOD Climate Change Adaptation Roadmap [pdf]. […]
16 December 2013 (NASA) – While the continental U.S. shivered through an abnormally cold spell in December 2013, Alaska experienced record-breaking heat. Both extremes were caused by an unusual kink in the northern hemisphere’s polar jet stream, which caused frigid Arctic air to move south and warm air to head north. The jet stream is […]
By Andrew Freedman 10 December 2013 (Climate Central) – While the continental U.S. has been shivering from coast-to-coast with temperatures dropping as low as minus-40°F amid one of the most severe early December cold snaps in several years, one state bucked the trend in an historic way. The same contorted jet stream pattern that brought […]
11 November 2013 (NOAA/NCDC) – The Alaska statewide average temperature during October 2013 was 8.8°F above the 1971-2000 average marking its warmest October on record in the 95-year period of record. The previous record warm October occurred in 1925, when the temperature was 7.7°F above average. Locally, the Fairbanks average October temperature of 36.1°F was […]
