Arctic species poorly adapted for coping with rising temperatures as the Arctic continues to warm The Arctic is warming at approximately twice the global rate. A new study led by researchers from McGill University finds that cold-adapted Arctic species, like the thick-billed murre, are especially vulnerable to heat stress caused by climate change. “We discovered […]
Alaska went big on New Year’s. First, on New Year’s Eve 2020, a superstorm spun its way through the North Pacific Ocean and into the Aleutian Islands. The twirling mass of gases surrounding Earth was more than 5,000 miles wide, its boundaries stretching from northern Japan to middle Alaska. That’s about 10 times the width […]
SOLOMONS, MD (November 11, 2020)–Arctic researchers Jacqueline Grebmeier and Lee Cooper have been visiting the Bering and Chukchi seas off Alaska for nearly 30 years, collecting information about the biological diversity of the watery world under the sea ice to understand how marine ecosystems are responding to environmental changes. This year, a late-season research cruise […]
The impacts of predator loss and climate change are combining to devastate living reefs that have defined Alaskan kelp forests for centuries, according to new research published in Science. “We discovered that massive limestone reefs built by algae underpin the Aleutian Islands’ kelp forest ecosystem,” said Douglas Rasher, a senior research scientist at Bigelow Laboratory for […]
High summer is here in middle Alaska. North of Fairbanks, in bright sunshine, alder flycatchers are perched in spruce tops, just arriving from Bolivia and Peru. A few steps away, accompanied by the smell of sulfur, dozens of carrion flies buzz on and above a moose carcass. Permafrost expert Tom Douglas has led me […]
Research examines how virus particles behave in different environments, including changing seasons, air-conditioned offices One of the biggest unknowns about the coronavirus is how changing seasons will affect its spread. Now physicists at the University of Utah have received a National Science Foundation grant to tackle the question. Michael Vershinin and Saveez Saffarian are studying the structure of […]
The 2013 to 2016 marine heatwave—known as “The Blob”—is the largest warm anomaly ever recorded in the North Pacific. In the Gulf of Alaska, scientists have connected low numbers of Pacific cod larvae, juveniles, and adults to loss of spawning habitat. This occured during and immediately following the heatwave. Compounding the ecological loss is the […]
Alaska had its warmest year on record in 2019, making a big splash across state, national and even world news. That ranking would not be possible without the diligent and forward-looking work of a handful of University of Alaska Fairbanks scientists. Each month the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration assesses the U.S. climate by […]
A father wakes, rolls out of bed and drops his toes to cold carpet. He grabs a flashlight and shines it outside the window. The thermometer reads 40 below zero, the only point at which the Fahrenheit and Celsius scales agree. The red liquid within his thermometer is alcohol; mercury freezes at 38 below. […]