“This green line looks like the death of permafrost — it’s flatlining,” Louise Farquharson said to an audience of a few dozen scientists. Her quiet voice came through speakers over the muffled clicking of keyboards and occasional coughs in a dimly lit room at the 2019 American Geophysical Union fall meeting in San Francisco. […]
Scientists simulated the Blob marine heatwave in the laboratory to assess the effects of past and future climate change on one of Alaska’s valuable commercial fish. Preliminary findings from a new laboratory study suggest that when ocean temperatures rise, lower fat prey leads to slower growth for juvenile Pacific cod. Scientists are evaluating how changes […]
Forty years later, another plastic canary has come home to roost. In August, University of Alaska Fairbanks scientist Ben Jones was hiking near Drew Point on the northern coast of Alaska. He noticed pilot Jim Webster walking toward him, while flicking a little yellow Frisbee his way. That yellow plastic disc, about 7 inches round, […]
The logistics of doing research in the Arctic are challenging and complex. Travelling hundreds of miles through tundra, sometimes in temperatures well below freezing, to collect data in one of the most extreme environments in the world requires careful planning. The difficulties could be cut down significantly if better infrastructure was in place. There are […]