Filters: Contacts: Alaska CSC (X)
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Permanently frozen ground, known as permafrost, is a critical feature of the Arctic landscape. As temperatures warm, permafrost is thawing, with potentially adverse impacts to infrastructure, communities, and the structure and function of Arctic ecosystems. However, the processes leading to changes in permafrost are not well understood, and there is a need to better understand the vulnerability of permafrost to thaw. Addressing these gaps in information regarding permafrost characteristics and dynamics, and what these changes will mean for human communities and ecosystems, will support management and planning efforts. This project seeks to address these gaps through several mechanisms. First researchers have synthesized...
Categories: Project;
Types: Map Service,
OGC WFS Layer,
OGC WMS Layer,
OGC WMS Service;
Tags: 2016,
Alaska,
Alaska CASC,
Arctic,
Arctic,
Permafrost is a layer of perennially frozen soil that primarily exists in and around the Arctic and Antarctic regions of the world. While a shallow near-surface soil layer (called active layer) thaws during the summer and re-freezes in the winter, the underlying permafrost remains perennially frozen, often underlying buildings, roads, and other infrastructure. As warmer temperatures become more common, thawing of permafrost could have major consequences for Alaska. Where thawing has already occurred, dramatic changes in ecosystems and existing infrastructure are evident. For example, thawing permafrost along the ocean shore and riverbanks in Northern Alaska is causing substantial coastal erosion and is impacting...
Categories: Project;
Types: Map Service,
OGC WFS Layer,
OGC WMS Layer,
OGC WMS Service;
Tags: 2014,
Alaska,
Alaska CASC,
Arctic,
CASC,
In coastal Alaska, changes in snow, ice, and extreme weather events threaten human communities, critical infrastructure, valuable natural resources, and traditional, subsistence hunting and fishing lifestyles. Understanding how changing climate conditions impact Alaska’s coastal ecosystems, and how these changes may be tied to the ability of coastal communities to adapt to changing conditions, has been identified as a priority question in the state. In order to identify knowledge gaps and resource needs related to adaptation and resilience in coastal Alaska, the Alaska Climate Science Center partnered with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Aleutian Pribilof Islands Association, and a dozen other entities...
Categories: Project;
Types: Map Service,
OGC WFS Layer,
OGC WMS Layer,
OGC WMS Service;
Tags: 2017,
Alaska,
Alaska CASC,
Alaska Natives and Corporations,
Alaska Natives and Corporations,
Understanding how snow will change over the coming century is vital in understanding environmental changes across Alaska. Changes in snow are also economically important to many sectors, from recreation to commercial fishing. An earlier set of rain-snow partitioning and snowfall equivalent projections based on downscaled CMIP3 temperature and precipitation projections have been used extensively. In this project, we developed updated projections for the fraction of precipitation days that are snowy (vs. rainy) and the amount of precipitation that likely falls as snow to be consistent with the newest downscaled temperature and precipitation released by SNAP. The outputs are decadal monthly averages. The updated snow...
Categories: Project;
Types: Map Service,
OGC WFS Layer,
OGC WMS Layer,
OGC WMS Service;
Tags: 2017,
Alaska,
Alaska CASC,
CASC,
Climate and Ecosystem Modeling,
In Alaska, increased wildfire activity has been linked to warming temperatures. Summers with extreme wildfire activity threaten life and property, clog the air with smoke, and challenge the state’s wildland firefighters. While the largest fires are often started by lightning and burn in remote areas, these fires require significant resources to fight when they threaten life and property. Increased wildfire activity is projected to continue in Alaska, as climate conditions change. Therefore, understanding how to best calculate fire risk based on short and long-term weather conditions is needed to improve fire season forecasts. Currently, Alaska’s fire managers rely on the Canadian Forest Fire Weather Index to monitor...
Categories: Project;
Types: Map Service,
OGC WFS Layer,
OGC WMS Layer,
OGC WMS Service;
Tags: 2017,
Alaska,
Alaska CASC,
Alaska wildfire,
CASC,
The Klamath Basin in Oregon and California is home to a rich abundance of natural and cultural resources, many of which are vulnerable to present and future climate change. Climate change also threatens traditional ways of life for tribal communities, who have deep connections to the region. This project sought to increase the effectiveness of regional climate change adaptation and planning by (1) developing ways to integrate traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) with western science in decision making, (2) building partnerships between tribal, academic, and government institutions, and (3) increasing future capacity to respond to climate change by engaging tribal youth. Through this project, the Quartz Valley...
Categories: Project;
Types: Map Service,
OGC WFS Layer,
OGC WMS Layer,
OGC WMS Service;
Tags: 2013,
Alaska,
Alaska CASC,
CASC,
Completed,
Categories: Publication;
Types: Citation;
Tags: Alaska CASC,
Glaciers and Permafrost,
Landscapes,
Rivers, Streams and Lakes,
Water, Coasts and Ice,
Abstract (from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165232X1400038X#): We present an inverse modeling approach for reconstructing the effective thermal conductivity of snow on a daily basis using air temperature, ground temperature and snow depth measurements. The method is applied to four sites in Alaska. To validate the method we used measured snow densities and snow water equivalents. The modeled thermal conductivities of snow for the two interior Alaska sites have relatively low values and reach their maximum near the end of the snow season, while the conductivities at the two sites on the Alaskan North Slope are higher and reach their maximum earlier in the snow season. We show that the reconstructed...
Categories: Publication;
Types: Citation;
Tags: Alaska CASC,
Data Visualization & Tools,
SWE,
Science Tools for Managers,
Snow thermal conductivity,
During the summer in the northeast Pacific Ocean, the Alaska Coastal Current sweeps water with temperatures in excess of 12 °C past the mouths of glacierized fjords and bays. The extent to which these warm waters affect the mass balance of Alaskan tidewater glaciers is uncertain. Here we report hydrographic measurements made within Icy Bay, Alaska, and calculate rates of submarine melt at Yahtse Glacier, a tidewater glacier terminating in Icy Bay. We find strongly stratified water properties consistent with estuarine circulation and evidence that warm Gulf of Alaska water reaches the head of 40 km - long Icy Bay, largely unaltered. A 10 - 20 m layer of cold, fresh, glacially-modified water overlies warm, saline...
Categories: Publication;
Types: Citation;
Tags: Alaska CASC,
Alaska Coastal Current,
Forests,
Glaciers and Permafrost,
Gulf of Alaska,
Wild berries are a valued traditional food for tribes of the Chugachmiut Tribal Consortium (Chenega Bay, Eyak, Nanwalek, Port Graham, Qutekcak, Tatitlek, and Valdez) in the rural Chugach region of south-central Alaska. Berries supply essential nutrients that prevent heart disease and cancer, are used for medicinal purposes, and are the only sweet food in the traditional Native diet. Hence, berries have both nutritional and cultural significance. From 2008 to 2012, wild berry populations in the Chugach region were decimated by an unexpected outbreak of moths, thought to have been brought about by shifting climate (i.e., warmer temperatures allowed a greater number of moths to survive the winter). This outbreak...
Categories: Project;
Types: Map Service,
OGC WFS Layer,
OGC WMS Layer,
OGC WMS Service;
Tags: 2013,
Alaska,
Alaska CASC,
Alaska Natives and Corporations,
Alaska Natives and Corporations,
FAIRBANKS, AK: A new scientific synthesis suggests a gradual, prolonged release of greenhouse gases from permafrost soils in Arctic and sub-Arctic regions, which may afford society more time to adapt to environmental changes, say scientists in a paper published in Nature.... This press release discusses findings from a study, Climate change and the permafrost carbon feedback, from the project, Development and Application of an Integrated Ecosystem Model for Alaska.
Alaska is experiencing effects of global climate change that are due, in large part, to the positive feedback mechanisms associated with polar amplification. The major risk factors include loss of sea ice and glaciers, thawing permafrost, increased wildfires, and ocean acidification. Reanalyses, integral to understanding mechanisms of Alaska’s past climate and to helping to calibrate modeling efforts, are based on the output of weather forecast models that assimilate observations. This study evaluates temperature and precipitation from five reanalyses at monthly and daily time scales for the period 1979–2009. Monthly data are evaluated spatially at grid points and for six climate zones in Alaska. In addition, daily...
Categories: Publication;
Types: Citation;
Tags: Alaska CASC,
Data Visualization & Tools,
Science Tools for Managers
Abstract: We measured stream temperature continuously during the 2011 summer run-off season (May through October) in nine watersheds of Southeast Alaska that provide spawning habitat for Pacific salmon. The nine watersheds have glacier coverage ranging from 0% to 63%. Our goal was to determine how air temperature and watershed land cover, particularly glacier coverage, influence stream temperature across the seasonal glacial meltwater hydrograph. Multiple linear regression models identified mean watershed elevation (related to glacier extent) and watershed lake coverage (%) as the strongest landscape controls on mean monthly stream temperature, with the weakest (May) and strongest (July) models explaining 86% and...
Categories: Publication;
Types: Citation;
Tags: Alaska CASC,
Forests,
Glaciers and Permafrost,
Landscapes,
Pacific salmon,
In coastal Alaska, changes in snow, ice, and extreme weather events threaten human communities, critical infrastructure, valuable natural resources, and hunting and fishing livelihoods. Identifying how changing climate conditions impact Alaska’s coastal ecosystems, and how these changes may be tied to the ability of coastal communities to adapt to changing conditions, has been identified as a priority question in the state. In order to identify knowledge gaps and resource needs related to adaptation and resilience in coastal Alaska, the Alaska Climate Science Center partnered with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Aleutian Pribilof Islands Association, and others in 2016 to hold a series of workshops in...
Categories: Project;
Types: Map Service,
OGC WFS Layer,
OGC WMS Layer,
OGC WMS Service;
Tags: 2017,
Alaska,
Alaska CASC,
Alaska Natives and Corporations,
Alaska Natives and Corporations,
The Gulf of Alaska is one of the most productive marine ecosystems on Earth, supporting salmon fisheries that alone provide large economic benefits to Southeast Alaska. The region also has a vibrant and growing tourism industry. Glaciers are central to many of the area’s natural processes and economic activities, but the rates of glacier loss in Alaska are among the highest on Earth. Glacier loss threatens to significantly change the amount and timing of nutrients delivered by streams to near-shore habitats. Changes in glacier runoff into the ocean may also impact coastal currents that contribute to vibrant nearshore marine ecosystems. Improving our understanding of how ecosystems depend on glaciers and what glacier...
Categories: Project;
Types: Map Service,
OGC WFS Layer,
OGC WMS Layer,
OGC WMS Service;
Tags: 2015,
Alaska,
Alaska CASC,
CASC,
Forests,
Moose and caribou are two very important animals to both subsistence and sport hunting economies in Alaska. Their survival and reproduction is dependent on sufficient winter habitat and food sources, which may be threatened by climate change. During the winter, caribou eat lichens (organisms made up of algae and fungus) that grow on the snow-covered ground. Lichens will likely have a complex response to climate change, affected in different ways by factors like changing precipitation, wildfire, and competition with plants. For example, as temperatures warm, there will likely be less snow cover, exposing more of the lichen to caribou. Simultaneously, increased fire frequency could reduce lichen availability. Moose,...
Categories: Project;
Types: Map Service,
OGC WFS Layer,
OGC WMS Layer,
OGC WMS Service;
Tags: 2014,
Alaska,
Alaska CASC,
CASC,
Mammals,
Glaciers are a central component to the hydrology of many areas in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest. Glacier melt plays a crucial role in the movement of nutrients through a landscape and into the ocean, and the flow of water into streams that sustain many species. As air temperatures rise, increased rates of glacier melt may have significant impacts to the hydrology and ecology in these areas. This project aims to broaden our understanding of the role of glaciers in the hydrology of Alaska and Washington state and incorporate this knowledge into two types of models that simulate past and future scenarios of water flow. The project team aims to develop a public web portal to allow users to explore content, access...
Categories: Project;
Types: Map Service,
OGC WFS Layer,
OGC WMS Layer,
OGC WMS Service;
Tags: 2015,
Alaska,
Alaska,
Alaska CASC,
CASC,
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