Andy Bassich lives on the south bank of the Yukon River, about 12 miles downstream from Eagle, Alaska, the first community in America along the largest waterway in Alaska. Like all of the few thousand people who live along the big river in Alaska, Bassich hopes that river ice formed by the cold air of […]
Residents of Southeast Alaska are used to lots of rain and snow. Although precipitation varies greatly across the region, less than 30 inches of precipitation a year is highly unusual. As the climate changes, however, the region has experienced hotter and drier conditions, as well as other unusual weather events. Extreme heat and drought conditions […]
Hydrogen and oxygen ions escaping from Earth’s upper atmosphere and combining on the moon could be one of the sources of the known lunar water and ice, according to new research by University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute scientists. The work led by UAF Geophysical Institute associate research professor Gunther Kletetschka adds to a growing body of research about […]
An international team of scientists has proved that Mercury, our solar system’s smallest planet, has geomagnetic storms similar to those on Earth. The research by scientists in the United States, Canada and China includes work by Hui Zhang, a space physics professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute. Their finding, a first, answers […]
University of Alaska Fairbanks students will return to several Bristol Bay communities this year to continue quantifying and mapping widespread coastal erosion. Students in the Arctic Coastal Geoscience Lab of the UAF Geophysical Institute have been trudging through mud and scrambling over the debris of slumped-off bluffs in the region since 2016. Their research is […]
Alaska’s coastal waters are some of the most commercially valuable and productive ecosystems on the planet. Ocean acidification—a decrease in ocean pH caused by increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide—is expected to impact these ecosystems, but very little is known about how it could alter nearshore environments. Nearshore ecosystems provide habitat and serve as a nursery […]
Because of where Southeast Alaska sits — at the wetted lips of the planet’s widest expanse of blue — it is often soaked by atmospheric rivers, firehoses of moisture flowing up from the tropics. And even though the forests and muskegs of Southeast Alaska have evolved to drink up and shed stunning amounts of rain, […]
Two sounding rockets are scheduled to launch from Poker Flat Research Range just minutes apart in an experiment aimed at learning how energy is transferred and dissipated during auroral displays. The findings could increase the understanding of factors affecting satellites in low Earth orbit. The NASA-funded Ion-Neutral Coupling during Active Aurora experiment could launch from […]