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 […]
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 […]
Senator Lisa Murkowski today continued to advocate for Arctic investment with her colleagues on the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security. While discussing the Fiscal Year 2015 Homeland Security funding bill, Murkowski insisted that the committee focus more on Arctic issues like maritime commerce, natural resource development, Coast Guard search and rescue, and the critical […]
Slicing through the top quarter of the Alaska map, the Arctic Circle marks the boundary of perpetual light. North of the line, the sun won’t set on summer solstice. But somehow the breezy, treeless tundra of Barrow has a more arctic feel than Fort Yukon, also poleward of the line but home to dense spruce […]