Americans who heat their homes primarily with oil could be hit the hardest, with up to a 20 percent jump in prices predicted. But what happens in the Lower 48 doesn’t always apply to Alaska.
Climate Change
Climate change will cost Alaska hundreds of millions per year, report finds
One of the report’s authors said the dollar figures don’t capture the large disparity between climate change’s cost to urban and rural Alaska.
As ocean heats up off Northwest Alaska, the fishing does too
This year’s commercial harvest of chum salmon in Kotzebue Sound was nearly 700,000 fish, breaking a record nearly four decades old. To the south, the value of the commercial salmon catch in Norton Sound was also the highest ever.
New federal report: Climate change is going to be expensive in Alaska and impact every household in the state
The chapter on Alaska addresses things we’ve heard a lot about, like Arctic sea ice retreat and coastal erosion, but also less obvious threats, like the growing risk climate change poses to human health.
Science and traditional knowledge converge in North Slope Borough’s bowhead whale program
Scientists have spent the past few decades catching up to traditional knowledge, documenting scientifically what whale hunters already knew. Like the fact that the whales can smell, and that they can travel under sea ice.
Scientists map shifting migration around Alaska mountains, using GPS-equipped eagles
When golden eagles migrate to and from Alaska each year, they have to fly around a huge obstacle: the 16,000-foot peaks of the Wrangell Mountains. Some of the eagles choose a route that skirts the northern edge of the mountains. Others go south. A new study examined how the weather affects which way the eagles fly.
Things are heating up for Alaska pollock — and it’s putting them in the mood to spawn
Over the past three decades, pollock spawning times in the Gulf of Alaska have varied as much as three weeks. That’s potentially deadly for baby fish that are spawned into an environment that’s not ideal.
New study says Chukchi polar bears are healthy despite sea ice loss — for now
“Unless the underlying problem of climate change is addressed, the sea ice is expected to continue to diminish,” said polar bear researcher Eric Regehr. “And at some point that will likely have a negative effect on the bears in this Chukchi area.”
How El Niño and ‘the blob’ will affect Juneau snow
This November has not been promising for snow so far. In general, NOAA data and models call for warmer and wetter conditions this winter in Southeast Alaska.
With election of Dunleavy, is Walker’s climate action team out in the cold?
Before the election, Gov.-elect Mike Dunleavy said there were “a lot of issues that, in my opinion, are quite frankly and bluntly more important” than Gov. Bill Walker’s Climate Action for Alaska Leadership Team.