ALASKA - The Muldrow Glacier

NOTE:  Follow article link to see interactive pics of glacier.

"This Glacier in Alaska Is Moving 100 Times Faster Than Normal" by Jugal K. Patel and Henry Fountain, The New York Times 4/13/2021

The Muldrow Glacier, on the north side of Denali in Alaska, is undergoing a rare surge.  In the past few months the 39-mile-long river of ice has been moving as much as 90 feet a day, 100 times its usual speed.

The event has excited glaciologists, who’ve rushed to study it using satellite imaging, specialized aerial photography and global positioning system devices delicately placed on the shifting ice.

Surges often last only a few months.  Most of them occur on remote glaciers and are detected only after they’ve ended — when, for example, satellite images show that a glacier front has rapidly advanced.  But the Muldrow is within Denali National Park and Preserve.  Planes regularly fly over the glacier carrying sightseers and climbers eager to ascend North America’s highest mountain.

In early March, the pilot of just such a flight near the Muldrow Glacier noticed large numbers of new crevasses as well as changes to lateral moraines, areas of rocky debris that build up on the edges of glaciers.  “They looked all torn up,” said Chris Palm, the pilot, with K2 Aviation.

He took photographs with his phone, which were quickly shared with researchers, including some from the National Park Service who have been studying the glacier for years.  Satellite data soon confirmed that the ice was moving much faster than the speed it had averaged over recent decades, less than a foot a day.

The stress and strain from rapid movement of so much ice — the glacier is up to about 1,500 feet thick and a mile and a half across — is causing all the deformation and fracturing.

“The whole glacier is so cracked up,” said Chad Hults, the Alaska regional geologist with the park service, who landed on the Muldrow in late March in a helicopter to set up equipment to measure the speed and other characteristics of the surge.

Mr. Hults was involved in a study of the Muldrow two decades ago, when the glacier was quiet and calm and relatively easy to walk across.  This time, he said, the ice was so shattered it was hard to find a place to land the helicopter.  And he could hear loud crashes and booms from breaking and falling ice even over the noise of the aircraft’s engine.

The Muldrow was the route used by the first climbers to ascend Denali, in 1913, and still some climbers choose that way up the mountain.  But with the climbing season about to begin, the route may be impassable, Mr. Hults said.

Surges occur on only about 1 percent of glaciers worldwide.  And on a given glacier, decades may pass between events.  Because of that relative rarity, scientists haven’t been able to study them enough to have a complete understanding of why they happen, or to gauge how climate change, which is rapidly melting glaciers in Alaska and elsewhere, may be affecting them.

Mark Fahnestock, a glaciologist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, said changes in the mass balance between the top and bottom of the glacier play a critical role in surges.  Over time, ice accumulates in the higher, colder stretches and is lost from the lower, warmer ones.

“The upper parts thicken and the lower parts melt back,” Dr. Fahnestock said.  The surge restores the balance, rapidly shifting mass down to the lower parts.

Since global warming is causing less ice accumulation and more melting, Dr. Fahnestock said it is likely to have an impact.  “There will be effects, especially in Alaska because the mass loss is so high,” he said.

The Muldrow last surged in 1956-57, and research from the region suggested that it has done so about every 50 years.  So scientists were expecting the glacier to surge again at some point.

But what actually triggers a surge is not fully understood.

For the Muldrow and many other surging glaciers, meltwater that becomes trapped at the base of the glacier by sediment or other rocky debris, called till, may be part of what sets a surge off, said Martin Truffer, a glaciologist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

This meltwater, created from the heat of friction between the ice and bedrock and from heat within the Earth itself, builds up in the trapped area.  At some point the water pressure becomes so high that the friction between the ice and bedrock is reduced, and the glacier picks up speed.

The Muldrow lies along a major fault, the Denali, and the steep, rugged terrain has been broken up by earthquakes and suffers severe erosion.  So the glacier, like many other glaciers that surge, has a lot of debris underneath it that could trap water.

“You need lots of till,” Dr. Truffer said.  “But that alone is not enough.”

Surges usually begin in the winter and end in the summer, when water from surface melting greatly increases the flow through the glacier, to the point where any bottlenecks are broken up.  That lowers the water pressure and increases the friction, slowing the ice.

Some surges start again the following winter when meltwater flow decreases.  But Dr. Truffer and others think the Muldrow is moving so fast that the shift in mass balance will play itself out in the next few months, and it will stop until the next surge, decades from now.

The 1956-57 surge pushed ice about four miles beyond the existing terminus.  That ice has been stagnant since then, much of it now covered with tundra, said Guy Adema, a park service scientist who led the Muldrow study two decades ago.  It is visible from one of the park’s visitor centers.

Mr. Adema said the current surge may push over and beyond the old ice, and if so should provide a visual treat for viewers — a wall of gleaming, fresh ice, cracking and occasionally breaking off pieces.

ALASKA - Rising Waters

"As water levels rise, this Alaska town is fleeing to higher ground" PBS NewsHour 11/27/2019

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SUMMARY:  Rising sea levels will threaten three times more people in the next 30 years than previously thought, according to the latest scientific estimates.  Among the hundreds of millions of people worldwide facing the threat are the 400 residents of Newtok, Alaska.  Rising river and eroding land is pushing the entire community to relocate, despite emotional and logistical hurdles.  Stephanie Sy reports.

ALASKA - Anchorage Earthquake

"In Anchorage, ‘violent’ earthquake causes extensive damage" PBS NewsHour 11/30/2018

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SUMMARY:  A strong earthquake shook Alaska's largest city, Anchorage, startling residents, damaging buildings and uprooting roads.  The governor has declared a disaster, and schools are closed for several days until buildings can be assessed.  Judy Woodruff speaks by phone to Lori Townsend of Alaska Public Media about "the most violent shaking" she has experienced in 20 years in the state.

WILDFIRES - The New Normal

"High temperatures and dry conditions are helping wildfires spread" PBS NewsHour 7/27/2018

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SUMMARY:  Firefighters are battling rapidly expanding wildfires across California, facing high winds and triple digit temperatures, while mass evacuations are underway in some areas.  Other states like Oregon and Alaska are facing even more severe situations.  Science correspondent Miles O'Brien reports on why fire officials say this is “the new normal.”

Miles O’Brien (NewsHour):  There are 89 large fires burning more than 870,000 acres across 13 states, mostly in the American West.  Oregon and Alaska are each dealing with 15 fires.

NEWSHOUR SHARES - Baby Beluga Got Stranded

"When a baby beluga got stranded, these vets jumped into action" PBS NewsHour 3/7/2018

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SUMMARY:  In our NewsHour Shares moment of the day, a team of veterinarians went into overdrive when they discovered a beluga whale calf separated from its mother on a rocky, Alaska beach.  Special correspondent Valerie Kern of Alaska Public Media shares a profile of the woman who led the rare rescue.

KODIAK ALASKA - Power Surge

"How the second-busiest U.S. fishing port is powered by wind and water" PBS NewsHour 11/1/2017

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SUMMARY:  Kodiak, Alaska, is not only home to abundant fishing grounds, but also to one of the most innovative power grids in the country.  As the cost of diesel rose a decade ago, a local electric co-op decided to aim for 100 percent renewable energy by harnessing the wind and water.  Special correspondent Rachel Waldholz of Alaska Public Media reports on their engineering feat.  This report comes from Alaska's Energy Desk, a public media collaboration focused on energy and the environment.

NEWSHOUR SHARES - Federal Research Vessel Tiglax

"Aboard a boat that ferries scientists to Alaskan wildlife" PBS NewsHour 9/2/2016

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SUMMARY:  Every summer, the federal research vessel Tiglax travels along the chain of Alaska's Aleutian Islands, ferrying scientists to remote locations to study wildlife.  The Aleutian archipelago is 1600 miles in length and constitutes an ecosystem of stunning diversity.  Tiglax's captain talks about life aboard the boat, the animals he's seen, the passion of his passengers and why he's ‘hopeful.'

CLIMATE CHANGE - The Testimony of Alaska's Soil and Squirrels

"How soil and squirrels offer cues on Alaska climate change" PBS NewsHour 11/24/2014

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GWEN IFILL (NewsHour):  Now the second of two field reports from Alaska on the impact of climate change and warmer temperatures.

Science correspondent Miles O’Brien reports from the 49th state on how those changes are affecting greenhouse gas levels and the consequences for the local ecosystem.

MILES O’BRIEN (NewsHour):  To get to the root of global warming in the Arctic, scientists need to pull out some serious tools.

WOMAN:  On three.  Yes.

(LAUGHTER)

MILES O’BRIEN:  But that doesn’t mean they have to take themselves too seriously.

Near Alaska’s Toolik Field Station, caught up with a pair of researchers on a backbreaking mission to drill cores in soil frozen hard as concrete.

MEGAN MACHMULLER, Colorado State University:  It’s hard work, especially hard to pull up frozen soil.

It’s something that we’re very passionate about because, you know, it’s so critical to understand the functions that are beneath our feet.  And so that motivates us, and we have fun while we’re doing it.

WOMAN:  You think about here?  OK.  Here we go.

MILES O’BRIEN:  Megan Machmuller is a postdoctoral fellow and Laurel Lynch a grad student at Colorado State University.  They’re part of a team trying to understand how and when the huge store of carbon, methane and other greenhouse gases permanently frozen in the Arctic tundra might be released into the atmosphere.

CLIMATE CHANGE - Tracking Using Alaska's Ice

"Scientists read layers of Alaska’s ice and snow to track climate change" PBS NewsHour 11/17/2014

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GWEN IFILL (NewsHour):  ...... how climate change may be affecting life in Alaska as we know it and the captivating images we see there, from ice to Marine life.

NewsHour science correspondent Miles O’Brien went there to see for himself.

MILES O’BRIEN (NewsHour):  Alaska may seem like a place where things don’t change very quickly, the natural beauty is set in stone and is as predictable as the caribou beside the road.

But make no mistake, things are changing here quickly, and not for the better.  Alaska is at the frontier of climate change.  Scientists are scrambling to try and understand it.

KARL KREUTZ, University of Maine:  We know that the Arctic is warming more rapidly than most other places on Earth.

MILES O’BRIEN:  To catch up with University of Maine paleoclimatologist Karl Kreutz and his team, we hopped on a plane rigged with skis that landed right on the Ruth Glacier in the heart of the Denali National Park.

KARL KREUTZ:  Most glaciers in Alaska are retreating.  We’d like to be able to predict with better accuracy of what will happen, but it’s hard to imagine a scenario there where glaciers will not continue to lose mass in this area.  The question is how fast.

MILES O’BRIEN:  But the answer is unknowable if they don’t know how much ice is here right now.

SETH CAMPBELL, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers:  To goal of this specific study is to come up with ice depth measurement across the glacier.

MILES O’BRIEN:  Kreutz’s colleague Seth Campbell is a research geophysicist for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.  He and University of Maine undergrad Abby Bradford spent long, strenuous days on skis towing a ground-penetrating radar up, down and across the glacier.

EDUCATION - Rual Alaska

"Encouraging rural Alaska’s students to become teachers" PBS NewsHour 11/13/2014

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GWEN IFILL (NewsHour):  Over the last few years, a number of academic gains have been made by historically disadvantaged students, including African-Americans and Latinos.  But Native American students have lost ground since 2008, with only about half earning a diploma.

In Alaska, an effort is under way to turn that around by creating more teachers within the Native community.

The “NewsHour's” April Brown reports as part of our American Graduate series.

APRIL BROWN (NewsHour):   Alaska is often called the last frontier.  A phrase that seems fitting for the town of Dillingham, which sits on a remote inlet near Bristol Bay.

For thousands of years, the area has been a hub for the Yup’ik people.  Today, more than 50 percent of the roughly 2,000 residents are Alaska Natives, who continue to survive on subsistence traditions passed down through the generations.  Home addresses are not a must here because everyone picks up their mail at the post office.

And when school begins in the fall, finding Alaska Native students, who have graduation rates that hover around 50 percent statewide, can be a challenge.

INA BOUKER, teacher:  Sometimes, families go moose hunting in the fall, right when school starts.  And families will take their kids and go to moose camp for a week, and so they will miss a whole week of school.

APRIL BROWN:  Alaska Native Ina Bouker has been a teacher in Dillingham’s schools for more than 30 years, and she’s well aware of the challenges and the legacy of mistrust that exists around education here.

Bouker was raised in the nearby village of Manokotak, at a time when American Indians and Alaska Natives were still being educated by mostly white teachers and told to shed their cultural identities.

CLIMAGE CHANGE - What 35,000 Walruses Are Telling Us

"Largest number of walruses seen ashore in Alaska is sign of ‘tremendous change’" PBS NewsHour 10/2/2014

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JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  When it comes to animal pictures going viral on the Web, the homely walrus hasn’t been at the top of the list, but put 35,000 walruses together on a beach in Alaska, and that’s a different story.

These images, the largest gathering of Pacific walruses ever recorded, has indeed done just that.  These walruses have been the stars of the Internet.  The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration spotted them last weekend during its annual survey of marine mammals.

The location is near Point Lay, Alaska, on the shores of the Chukchi Sea.  Scientists say a loss of sea ice is a big part of the reason the walruses are hauling out.  That’s the term used to describe their moving on to land.

Margaret Williams is a managing director of the Arctic Program for the World Wildlife Fund, and she joins me now.

Welcome to the NewsHour.

MARGARET WILLIAMS, World Wildlife Fund:  Hi, Judy.

JUDY WOODRUFF:  So why are the walruses doing this?  What’s going on?

MARGARET WILLIAMS:  Well, walruses are one of the many species in the Arctic that are highly dependent on the Arctic sea ice.

So the mothers raise their calves on the sea ice.  They use — these animals use the sea ice as a platform from which to dive to reach their food.  Walruses like the eat clams and shellfish.  And when the sea ice melts, as it is right now, they have to go somewhere to rest and to reach their food.

So they’re coming ashore in large numbers.  And the sea ice is melting so rapidly.  It’s melting earlier in the summer and later every — and forming later in the spring.  So the Arctic sea ice is changing dramatically.

ARCTIC THAW - Point Barrow, Alaska North Slope

"Melting Ice, Warming Waters Could Erode Way of Life for Alaska's North Slope" PBS Newshour 9/18/2013

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SUMMARY:  More than 300 miles north of the Arctic Circle, Alaska’s North Slope is ground zero for global climate change.  NewsHour producer April Brown reports the melting ice has opened up opportunity for shipping and other development – industry that could be catastrophic for the way of life of residents.

APRIL BROWN (Newshour):  It's a day of fishing out in the Arctic Ocean for brothers Brower and Jack Frantz.  They are checking on nets they have recently set near the shoreline of Point Barrow, the northernmost tip of America that sits more than 300 miles above the Arctic Circle.  Today's catch is seen as a moderate success.

The brothers were born and raised in nearby Barrow, Alaska, one of eight villages in the North Slope borough, an area that sprawls across more than 90,000 square miles and that for most of the year can only be reached by plane, or, depending on the sea ice, ship.

Nearly 5,000 people call Barrow home.  Roughly half are native Inupiat Eskimos.  For Brower and Jack, today is simply another day at the office.  They are often in search of walrus, seals and, when the season is right twice a year, they go for the biggest prize of them all, bowhead whales.

The marine mammal that has been at the center of Inupiat culture for generations.  All of their catch will later be shared with their family and friends.

ARCTIC THAW - Melting Glaciers = More Navigable Water

Note that this is climate change in action.

"Unmapped Routes May Pose Dangers for Shipping Boom in Arctic Waters" PBS Newshour 9/17/2013

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SUMMARY:  Melting glaciers mean more water to explore and profit from in the Arctic, but it can also mean danger for mariners.  NewsHour producer April Brown reports that scientists from the NOAA who inform sailors how close they can get to the ice have not been able to keep up with the dramatic speed of climate change and new vessels.

GWEN IFILL (Newshour):  Next, we head north to the Arctic Sea.

Thanks to climate change, there are now new waters to discover there.  Melting ice has opened new routes for ships, and raised concerns about safety for maritime traffic in uncharted territory.

NewsHour’s April Brown reports part two of our series, Arctic Thaw.

APRIL BROWN:  The vivid blue glaciers in Prince William Sound captivate tourists from all over the world. But they are slowly shrinking.

CODY HANNA, Klondike Express Captain:  We're back here, you know, about five months out of the year every day, so we're watching these glaciers break off, move back, and we're seeing the change daily.

APRIL BROWN:  Cody Hanna captains the Klondike Express tour boat.  He says the melting glaciers create more navigable water.

ALASKA - Sudden Torrents of Water From Glacier Threaten Juneau

Visitors leaving the ice caves under the Mendenhall Glacier, near Juneau, Alaska.
Unpredictable flood surges have elevated concerns.

"Alaska Looks for Answers in Glacier’s Summer Flood Surges" by KIRK JOHNSON, New York Times 7/22/2013

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The idea that glaciers change at a glacial speed is increasingly false.  They are melting and retreating rapidly all over the world.  But the unpredictable flood surges at the Mendenhall Glacier, about 14 miles from downtown Juneau, Alaska’s capital, are turning a jog into a sprint as global temperatures and climate variability increase.

Starting in July 2011, and each year since, sudden torrents of water shooting out from beneath the glacier have become a new facet of Juneau’s brief, shimmering high summer season.  In that first, and so far biggest, measured flood burst, an estimated 10 billion gallons gushed out in three days, threatening homes and property along the Mendenhall River that winds through part of the city.  There have been at least two smaller bursts this year.

“That first one caught us by surprise,” said Tom Mattice, the emergency programs manager and avalanche forecaster for the City and Borough of Juneau.

That the Mendenhall Glacier is thinning, and has been for decades, is only part of the explanation.  Water from snowmelt, rain and thawing ice are also combining in new ways, researchers said — first pooling in an ice-covered depression near the glacier called Suicide Basin, then finding a way to flow downhill.

What prompts a surge, and the urgent search for a way to anticipate and prepare by scientists and safety officials like Mr. Mattice, is pressure.  As water builds up in the basin and seeks an outlet, it can actually lift portions of the glacier ever so slightly, and in that lift, the water finds a release.  Under the vast pressure of the ice bearing down upon it, the water explodes out into the depths of Mendenhall Lake and from there into the river.

Glaciologists even have a name for the process, which is happening in many places all over the world as climates change: jokulhlaup, an Icelandic word usually translated as “glacier leap.”

“We don’t have a sense yet how much of a threat this poses, or how much water you could store up there,” said Jason Amundson, an assistant professor of geophysics at the University of Alaska Southeast, in Juneau.

What elevates the concern is the proximity of people, and lots of them.  Glaciers may be leaping in many places, but it mostly happens in isolation.

The roughly 12-mile-long Mendenhall, by contrast, is one of the most visited glaciers in the world, and an urban one.  About 400,000 tourists a year, 80 percent of them from the cruise ships that stop at the Port of Juneau, are drawn to the glacier.

“We’re a drive-up glacier,” said Nikki Hinds, the assistant director at the Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center, which is operated by the Forest Service.  “In how many places can you have that?”

This summer, glacier-monitoring intensified.  A pressure transducer to gauge water buildup, partly paid for by the city, was installed in a deep crack on the edge of the basin, with a satellite link sending back real-time data about the glacier’s hidden waterworks.  A time-lapse camera was also positioned at the main pooling site for the first time to track bulges in the ice that could suggest dammed-up water.

AMERICA - Alskan Hurrican?

"Snow, hurricane-force winds batter Alaska coast" by Rachel D'Oro (AP), CBS News 11/10/2011

Packing hurricane-force winds, an Alaskan storm of "epic proportions" slammed into coastal communities, sending some residents fleeing to higher ground as it tore roofs from homes and knocked out power.

The strongest storm to hit the state in four decades carried with it heavy snows and rains. The precipitation sent water levels rising late Wednesday night in Nome, causing flooding in low-lying areas, the National Weather Service said.

"It's barely beginning to wind down along the coast," Stephen Kearney, a meteorologist for the Weather Service in Fairbanks, said late Wednesday night.

Emergency officials warned that areas on Alaska's western coast between Norton Sound and Point Hope were vulnerable to a possible surge of sea water that could bring varying degrees of flooding to villages already soaked.

However, there were no new reports of substantial damage in Nome late Wednesday night, the National Weather Service said.

"The sea level will remain steady into the early morning hours and then start to come down tomorrow morning," Kearney told the Anchorage Daily News.

Flooding was reported in Point Hope, where the water came within 10 feet of the airport runway, but the community still had power, Kearney said.

Earlier, the storm produced 85-mph gusts, well above hurricane force. But emergency managers said that the winds had begun to taper off and were clocked with still-potent gusts of 55 mph. The storm passed through more southern points of its path.

Some villages, such as Kivalina, could be even more vulnerable with winds shifting as they head to Russia, officials said.

Water reportedly reached some reached homes in at least four Native villages, including Tununak and Kipnuk, state emergency managers said earlier Wednesday.

"This is a storm of epic proportions," said meteorologist Jeff Osiensky with the National Weather Service. "We're not out of the woods with this."

The last time the communities saw something similar was in November 1974, when a storm created a sea surge that measured more than 13 feet. The surge pushed beach driftwood above the level of the previous storm of its type in 1913.

The weather service said "a potent upper level disturbance" rotating around the Bering Sea storm is expected to bring 3 to 8 inches of snowfall to the Anchorage area by Thursday afternoon. The service issued a winter weather advisory for Anchorage in effect until noon Thursday.

Jeremy Zidek, spokesman for the state's emergency management agency, noted there have been no reports of injuries, and that damage so far has been largely limited to blown-out windows and battered roofs. Nome, Hooper Bay and Tununak reported scattered power outages. During outages, officials were able to maintain contact with communities by satellite phone and VHS radios.

Wednesday's planned test of the National Emergency Alert System was cancelled in Alaska due largely to the weather, KSRM radio reported.

The highest wind gusts recorded — 89 mph — were at Wales at the western tip of the Seward Peninsula, which forms the U.S. side of the Bering Strait, said Bob Fischer, lead forecaster for the weather service in Fairbanks.

Winton Weyapuk, president of the Wales Village Corp., said the community suffered more lost sleep than damage.

"People said they were worried," Weyapuk said. "When the wind gusted here, it was pretty loud inside their homes."

Some families moved to the school overnight as a precaution. Water came high into dunes in front of the village and approached the school steps, he said. But a drive through the community of 136 before the sun came up revealed little damage.

The southeast direction of the wind helped, Weyapuk said.

"The wind was blowing parallel to the beach instead of from the south or southwest, which would have brought the waves straight in," he said.

In Nome — the biggest of the coastal communities with about 3,600 residents — wind gusted to 61 mph. City officials said Wednesday afternoon that they closed and barricaded streets in low-lying areas where flooding was reported and urged residents to keep clear of those areas.

Residents along Front Street, which runs less than 100 feet from the seawall that protects Nome from the Bering Sea, were asked to voluntarily evacuate Tuesday night. They stayed with friends on higher ground or at one of two shelters opened by the city at a recreation center and at a church, Brown said.

About 180 miles to the northeast, in Kotzebue, the regional hub for northwest Alaska villages, the storm had quieted down by 10:30 a.m.

Wind gusting to 74 mph had damaged a few sheds and roofs. But power, phones and other utilities were not interrupted, said Dennis Tiepelman, public administrator for the Northwest Arctic Borough.

"Just debris and loose stuff flying around. No power outage, no utilities were off," Tiepelman said.

As the storm moved north to the Chukchi Sea at midday, a 14-foot rock seawall was holding up in Kivalina, one of the villages hardest hit by coastal erosion in recent decades, said community spokeswoman Colleen Swan.

Damage so far was limited to tin roofing on homes.

Swan's sister, Marilyn Swan, made the five-minute walk to her job as the city clerk. By the time she arrived, she was covered with clumps of snow.

"I've never seen it that bad before," she said. "We've had storms, but this is pretty strong."

The storm also pounded Tununak, 519 miles northwest of Anchorage. Water rising in a river had reached boardwalks in the Yupik Eskimo village, resident Elizabeth Flynn said.

The state and emergency managers in the villages have long prepared for the powerful storms that batter Alaska's western coast, holding twice-yearly meetings on dealing with emergencies. In the past few years, the state has held evacuation workshops as well, Zidek said.

The Coast Guard had received no calls Wednesday morning from vessels seeking help from the storm, Petty Officer 1st Class Sara Francis said.

Francis said the storm hit after most crab fishing had concluded.

"We're kind of in a lull with a lot of the fisheries," she said.