Sea ice in summer looks dramatically different than sea ice in winter, even in the polar Arctic. Summer snowmelt, pools of water on thinning ice and exposed ocean replace vast winter expanses of white snow-covered ice – and this weekend NASA’s high-flying laser altimeter begins a campaign to investigate these features. Icy areas look […]
On Oct. 6, 1883, this entry was in the Alaska Commercial Company logbook at an English Bay trading post, located about 50 miles northeast of Augustine volcano: “This morning at 8:15 o’clock, 4 tidal waves flowed with a westerly current, one following the other . . . the sea rising 20 feet above the usual […]
Alaska’s landscape has an unusual feature that allows us to enjoy cheap bananas in the Interior and other things that make life possible in the subarctic. The Nenana River, born on the south side of the Alaska Range, makes a u-turn and flows north through the mountains. With it comes a wide, low corridor that […]
A glaciologist once wrote that the number of glaciers in Alaska “is estimated at (greater than) 100,000.” That fuzzy number, perhaps written in passive voice for a reason, might be correct. But it depends upon how you count. Another glaciologist saw an example of the confusion when he visited Yakutat Glacier. Yakutat, near the Alaska […]