It’s mid-October, 118 miles from the Arctic Circle. Time for a walk to work. Since I last wrote about my three-mile commute through the raindrops of August, the 1,100 acres of boreal forest between my house and the university has undergone the most drastic change of the year. Ankle-deep snow covers the North Campus and […]
ANCHORAGE, AK – As the other Arctic nations – and many outside of the region – surge their investment and focus in the area, Senator Lisa Murkowski paid a visit to the United States Coast Guard Cutter POLAR SEA in Seattle to get an update on its status. With the POLAR SEA having been commissioned […]
One foggy day on St. Paul Island, a woolly mammoth stepped onto a trapdoor of greenery. It plunged thirty feet to the floor of a cave. There was no exit. A few thousand years later, a scientist who descended by ladder found the mammoth’s tooth amid the bones of other mammoths, polar bears, caribou, reindeer […]
MINTO — Sarah Silas, 89, smiled as she remembered an earthquake that shook her village more than 60 years ago. The floor of her cabin swayed so that her young son staggered away from her. “My three-year old boy was laughing,” she said inside her log cabin, its front door open to warm air on […]
One of the most visible signs of climate change in recent years was not even visible at all until a few decades ago. The sea ice cap that covers the Arctic Ocean has been changing dramatically, especially in the last 15 years. Its ice is thinner and more vulnerable – and at its summer minimum […]
COAST GUARD CUTTER HEALY, Arctic Ocean – Coast Guard and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration researchers successfully landed an unmanned aircraft system on the flight deck of Coast Guard Cutter Healy Monday, marking the first time a UAS has completed a take-off and landing aboard a Coast Guard icebreaker. UAS operators from AeroVironment, designers […]
From research stations drifting on ice floes to high-tech aircraft radar, scientists have been tracking the depth of snow that accumulates on Arctic sea ice for almost a century. Now that people are more concerned than ever about what is happening at the poles, research led by the University of Washington and NASA confirms that […]
The year is 1905. You are a prospector in Alaska relaxing in your cabin after a chilly day of working the tailings pile. Craving a cup, you pull a tin of coffee off the shelf. Though you can’t imagine it, that distinctive red can, the one you will later use for your precious supply of […]
SEWARD, Alaska — For a second year, members of the Coast Guard Research and Development Center, based in New London, Connecticut, make their way to the large ice floes of the Arctic Ocean to conduct research and test new equipment and technologies with the aim of expanding our knowledge and enhancing our ability to respond […]