An "all-time high" temperature record has been set in the US state of Alaska, despite much of the country sitting in the Arctic circle. Temperatures peaked at 32.22 Celsius (90F) on 4 July at an airport in Anchorage, the state's largest city. National Weather Service meteorologist Bob Clay said Anchorage's …
Global miner Rio Tinto said on Monday it will give away its 19.1 percent stake in Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd, owner of Alaska's huge Pebble deposit, after determining that the project does not fit its strategy. Rio is donating its shares to two Alaskan charities, the miner said. The move …
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said it has initiated a rarely used process under the Clean Water Act to "identify appropriate options to protect" the Bristol Bay fishery from the impact of the proposed mine. The decision follows a report in January that found large-scale mining would pose serious risks …
Arctic winters may have got shorter by a month. Arctic lakes have been found to be freezing up later in the year and thawing earlier, creating a winter ice season about 24 days shorter than it was in 1950. Satellite imagery has also confirmed that climate change has dramatically affected …
Trends in Alaska ecosystem carbon fluxes were predicted from inputs of monthly MODerate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) vegetation index time-series combined with the NASA-CASA (Carnegie Ames Stanford Approach) carbon cycle simulation model over the past decade. CASA simulates monthly net ecosystem production (NEP) as the difference in carbon fluxes between …
Alaskans are learning to build differently to minimize the damage of global warming. "We take a very practical approach to adaptation," says Jack Hebert,president of the non-profit Cold Climate Housing Research Center in Fairbanks. He and colleagues try to avoid building on permafrost, land that is frozen underground but can …
Shell has agreed to pay $1.1 million for air-quality violations from the vessels it used to drill two oil-exploration wells in Arctic waters off Alaska last year, federal regulators said. Shell will pay the civil fines for Clean Air Act violations that were discovered during inspections of the Discoverer and …
A magnitude 7.0 earthquake rocked Alaska's Aleutian Islands with a jet-like rumble Friday that shook homes and sent residents scrambling for cover. "I heard it coming," said Kathleen Nevzoroff, who was sitting at her computer in the tiny Aleutians village of Adak when the major temblor struck at 8:25 a.m. …
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said Thursday that the year 2012 was the ninth warmest on record despite the cooling influence of a La Nina episode early in the year. The WMO's Statement on the Status of the Global Climate said that the global land and ocean surface temperature in …
The Alaska Energy Authority is planning to build a 735-foot, $5.2 billion structure on the Susitna River in a largely empty south-central part of the state, which is watered by runoff from the arc of the Alaska Range. The dam, designed to generate up to 600 megawatts of electricity, would …
Scientists Report Steady Fall In Temp In US State Since Beginning Of 21st Century London: Bucking the overall global warming trend, Alaska may actually be heading for an ice age with scientists reporting a steady temperature decline in the snow covered US state. A new study by Alaska Climate Research …
The U.S. federal government on Wednesday announced a plan to manage energy drilling on part of Alaska's North Slope, with the 23-million-acre National Petroleum Reserve to be divided between areas available for oil and gas leases and those that are protected from development. The announcement by U.S. Interior Secretary Ken …
For a millennium, the majestic, lily-white polar bear has lorded over the frozen wastes of the Arctic. But if two Russian experts are to be believed, the enigmatic "monarch of the ice" could be extinct in 25 years due to global warming and human incursions into their traditional habitat. "If …
Polar bears' designation as a threatened species was challenged in a U.S. appeals court on Friday, with a lawyer for Alaska and other parties arguing that regulators had failed to back up the listing. Alaska and other plaintiffs that include hunters and the California Cattlemen's Association are appealing a federal …
A powerful earthquake rocked one of the few inhabited islands in Alaska's Aleutian chain on Wednesday, but no damage has been found, federal and local officials said. The magnitude 6.9 quake, centered 80 miles southwest of Adak, struck at 3:40 p.m. local time (7.40 p.m. EDT), the West Coast and …
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on Monday announced it will provide $250,000 in grants to five states affected by debris from last year’s tsunami in Japan. The agency said Alaska, Washington, Oregon, California and Hawaii will each receive up to $50,000 toward debris removal from its marine debris program. …
U.S. oil companies will be allowed to drill in more areas of the Gulf of Mexico but won only limited access to the Arctic under the final version of the Obama Administration's five year drilling plan that was slammed by industry and some environmentalists. The 2012-2017 plan calls for three …
So far, 2012 has been the warmest year the United States has ever seen, with the warmest spring and the second-warmest May since record-keeping began in 1895, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported on Thursday. Temperatures for the past 12 months and the year-to-date have been the warmest …
NOAA reported that six other arctic monitoring stations in their international cooperative air sampling network have reported CO2 concentrations of 400 ppm this spring. These measurements from remote high latitude stations in Alaska, Canada, Iceland, Finland, Norway and the North Pacific reflect background levels of CO2 influenced by the long-term …
Monitoring stations in the Arctic detect record levels of carbon dioxide, higher than ever above 'safe' 350ppm mark The world's air has reached what scientists call a troubling new milestone for carbon dioxide, the main global warming pollutant. Monitoring stations across the Arctic this spring are measuring more than 400 …
Environmental scientists have known that high levels of the toxic element, mercury, have been accumulating in the Arctic Ocean for some time. It was believed to be mostly caused by atmospheric sources stemming from the combustion of coal. However, a new study from the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied …
