Alaska

What’s happening to Alaska’s glaciers and how it could impact your trip

Published

2 years ago

September 22, 2024

What’s happening to Alaska’s glaciers and how it could impact your trip

Climate change is drastically impacting the world around us, including the way people travel and the destinations themselves. “Green Travel” is a seven-part series delving into how climate change is transforming the landscape of travel. If you’d like to contribute to our future reporting and share your experience as a source, you can click here to fill out this quick form.

When travelers visit Alaska, they often want to see glaciers.

And it’s the perfect place for those.

The Last Frontier is home to the most glaciers in the U.S. There are roughly 27,000 glaciers across the state, covering an area of about 80,000 square kilometers, according to Louis Sass, an Anchorage-based glaciologist with the Alaska Science Center U.S. Geological Survey.

“That’s about the same amount of area as the state of South Carolina or Lake Superior,” he said.

That’s huge, yet not as big as it used to be.

“Globally, most glaciers are melting and thinning and retreating much faster now than they were, say, prior to about the year 2000,” Sass said.

Here’s what that means for travelers hoping to see glaciers in Alaska and elsewhere.

What causes melting of glaciers?

It’s natural for glaciers to melt.

“You can really just think of a glacier as a huge conveyor belt that takes snow and ice from up high, where it can’t melt, down to low elevations where it’s a lot warmer and it does melt.”

It’s the rate of melting and thinning that’s shifted dramatically.

Research published in July in the peer-reviewed British journal Nature Communications, found the rates of glacier area shrinkage in Alaska’s Juneau icefield were five times faster from 2015 to 2019 than from 1948 to 1979.

A National Park Service report on Alaska’s glaciers noted glaciers within Alaska national parks shrank 8% between the 1950s and early 2000s and glacier-covered area across the state decreased by 13% between 1985 and 2020.

“These systems are under threat,” said Brice Esplin, Director of Sustainable Tourism and Partnerships at Leave No Trace. “Climate change is affecting them.”

While Sass did not identify climate change by name, noting he’s not a climate scientist, he said glaciers are very sensitive to inputs like temperature and precipitation.

“Temperature has kind of a double whammy, because air temperature can change the phase of the precipitation, so more of the precipitation that falls out of the sky can actually be rain instead of snow. And rain tends to run off the glacier and not add to the glacier mass,” he said.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Northwest Climate Hub notes Alaska is “warming at two to three times the rate of the global average.”

National parks ask us to Leave No Trace: Here’s what that actually means

What is happening to the glaciers in Alaska?

“Some glaciers are advancing, but the vast majority of them are shrinking, and at Kenai Fjords (National Park), you can just see that right up close and personal,” Peter Christian, chief spokesperson for Public Affairs for the National Park Service’s Alaska region, said last year during USA TODAY’s more than yearlong national park series.

An area of the park where that’s especially pronounced is Exit Glacier.

“It literally is changing yearly. If you went back from one year to the next, you could see how far the glacier has continued to retreat up into the mountains,” he said, noting that the Park Service has signs set up along the trail to the glacier, marking the changes.

Matanuska Glacier, about 100 miles from Anchorage, is another example.

“It’s only retreated a little bit. It’s actually very close to where it was even 120 years ago, but it has thinned a lot, and it’s actually really easy to see that thinning,” Sass said. “The ice is just sort of deflated as it loses mass and it melts.”

Matanuska Glacier is the state’s largest glacier accessible by road, according to Alaska’s official travel arm, Travel Alaska, but Sass said it used to be even easier to reach.

“There’s all these sort of little melt puddles right along the edge of the glacier that are getting bigger and bigger and harder to cross, and there’s more and more mud to try to get out to the ice,” he said. “It used to be, on Matanuska Glacier, you basically walked from the parking lot onto clean, white ice.”

He added that many tidewater glaciers have also been impacted.

“So even big cruise ships that are trying to take passengers up to see calving glaciers, they have to go further up the inlet to actually be able to see a calving glacier,” he said. “Places that used to have a really good view of a glacier sometimes don’t have a good view anymore, and so it gets generally more and more challenging to get to those places where you can kind of experience the same level of glacier.”

Where can you see a glacier?

From Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, home of the most glaciers of any national park, to Mendenhall Glacier, which is protected by the U.S. Forest Service, there are so many places to see glaciers in Alaska.

They can also be found in Glacier National Park in Montana, Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming, Mount Rainier National Park in Washington, and elsewhere around the West and the world.

“It’s important for people to see these amazing natural systems, because they create that appreciation, that love and that connection of nature and for the in the future,” Esplin said.

He encourages travelers to experience glaciers close to home, when possible.

“We have one glacier in my state in Great Basin National Park, and it’s shrinking rapidly. It probably won’t last the next 20 years,” he said. “Right now, that’s a short drive for me to go see a glacier, appreciate it before it’s gone.”

But he also understands the desire to behold glaciers far away, having recently visited Alaska himself and seen a handful of glaciers over several weeks.

“We want to think about really making sure that we’re choosing sustainable methods to visit these these areas,” he said. “If we did have to use airline fuel and burn that carbon to get up there, at least we’re staying for longer.”

What to know before visiting a glacier

“There have to be hundreds, if not thousands of opportunities up here in Alaska to see glaciers,” Sass said, encouraging people to “go see a glacier in a way that makes sense for them.”

That may be appreciating them from afar by land, air or sea or getting up close with a guided tour.

“We don’t expect people to hover above the ground and never interact with the natural world around us,” Esplin said. “It’s all a balancing act, a balancing act of humans being a part of nature, but also not destroying it entirely.”

For travelers who want to get up close, Esplin shared these Leave No Trace-based tips:

Plan ahead and prepare: “Usually that includes booking a guide service. It’s never recommended for anyone without sufficient training or expertise to go out on glaciers, as they’re constantly moving. They have crevasses, snow bridges and moulins. They’re usually (in) pretty remote environments as well, so that that safety aspect is one of the most important parts of interacting with glaciers.”

Be mindful of where you tread. “We can affect the vegetation on the sides and really promote erosion in areas if we’re not utilizing trails or durable surfaces to get on and off that glacier.

Pack out all waste, including food waste and human waste “so that it’s not being left behind to pollute that water source, that special place.”

Remember wildlife. “They use (glaciers) to travel in between places… Even though you feel like you might be on an isolated world, wildlife can still be out there.”

Contributing: Doyle Rice, USA TODAY

Source link

Click to comment

Alaska

State of Alaska Secures Win in Fight for Transparency Around Oil Development

Published

5 hours ago

May 29, 2026

Press Room

State of Alaska Secures Win in Fight for Transparency Around Oil Development

Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Image-SOM

(Bethel, AK) –Wednesday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a favorable opinion for the State of Alaska in ConocoPhillips Alaska v. Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (AOGCC), agreeing that State laws requiring disclosure of oil well data are not preempted by federal law.

“Alaska relies heavily on our resources and resource development,” said Acting Alaska Attorney General Cori Mills. “We are also stewards of those resources for the citizens of Alaska. Alaska’s law both allows resource development now, and encourages further development and exploration in the future. We’re pleased that the Ninth Circuit recognized that federal law has not overridden Alaska’s balanced approach.”

The Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission regulates oil and gas operations throughout Alaska, including within the National Petroleum Reserve–Alaska (NPR–A). Under Alaska law, companies need permits from the AOGCC to drill and must submit well data. The AOGCC is required to keep well data confidential for 24 months.

ConocoPhillips drilled several wells on lease holdings within the NPR–A and submitted data to the AOGCC. When the 24-month period expired, the AOGCC notified ConocoPhillips of the upcoming well data disclosure. ConocoPhillips sued in federal court to stop the disclosure process claiming that the Naval Petroleum Reserves Production Act, the federal law allowing private exploration in the NPR–A, preempted Alaska’s 24-month disclosure law. The federal district court found Alaska law preempted, and the AOGCC sought appellate review by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

On appeal, the Ninth Circuit agreed with the AOGCC. The federal Production Act does not preempt state law. The Ninth Circuit therefore reversed the district court’s holding to the contrary.

“The Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission is pleased with the court’s decision upholding Alaska law,” said AOGCC Commissioner Jessie Chmielowski in a declaration filed in the litigation court. “Alaska’s balanced approach to well data confidentiality leads to increased exploration activity, not less. Alaska law allows for a two-year confidentiality period on exploration well data to leverage a company’s investment in drilling. Thereafter, making the data public has incentivized exploration on the North Slope. Placing well data in the public record allows competing companies to evaluate different exploration concepts or interpretations based on seismic data that, without well data, are just educated guesses.”

# # #

Source link

Alaska

Opinion: A governor’s race for Alaska’s next generation

Published

17 hours ago

May 28, 2026

Press Room

Opinion: A governor’s race for Alaska’s next generation

Alaska Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins (Photo courtesy Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins)

Alaska needs change. That’s why I’m running for governor: to bring new energy and a new generation of leadership to the governor’s office.

For 13 years in a row, more Alaskans have left our great state than have moved here. Prices are rising, schools are closing and Alaskans are getting left behind.

This year, those planning to leave Alaska include Ben and Catherine Walker, both recipients of Alaska’s Teacher of the Year Award. They can’t justify staying in the place they grew up in and love because of our failure to invest in the fundamentals, such as our schools.

The problem is personal. I’m 37. Many of those leaving Alaska are my age — debating whether there’s a future for us here or not. It’s a challenge we must solve.

I love challenges.

Back in 2012, I dropped out of college to challenge an entrenched Republican incumbent legislator who was running unopposed to represent my home region of Southeast Alaska. I launched a scrappy, grassroots campaign and focused on the kitchen table issues that matter to every Alaskan: good schools, getting our fair share of oil revenues, lowering costs, protecting our fisheries. I won — by 32 votes.

When I was sworn in, I was baby-faced and bushy-tailed, just 23 years old. It was the beginning of a decade-long tenure in the Legislature. A lot happened in those 10 years.

Among the most important: We formed the House Bipartisan Coalition in 2016. While I have a “D” next to my name, I believe strongly in working across party lines. That’s what the Bipartisan Coalition was, and is, all about: Democrats, moderate Republicans and independents, all working together to do what’s best for Alaska.

I want to bring that same bipartisan, vigorous problem-solving spirit to the governor’s office, where it has been nonexistent the last eight years.

As governor, I want to work hand in hand with the Legislature to deliver some desperately needed wins for Alaska that will make our lives better and get our state back on track:

• Reinvest in our public schools. Our school districts are in battlefield triage mode, but instead of amputating limbs, our school boards are forced to choose which sports to cut, which electives to discontinue and which neighborhood school to close. Enough already. Get school funding back up to par.

• Forward fund our schools. Our school districts shouldn’t have to guess how much education funding will end up being appropriated in end-of-session legislative haggling.

This circus forces school districts to prospectively fire teachers, then rehire them a month or two later, when they find out the final education funding number. It’s awful for all involved. We should fix it by forward funding.

• Close the Hilcorp corporate income tax loophole. Hilcorp should pay their fair share in taxes just as ConocoPhillips, and nearly every other major corporation in Alaska, already does.

• Lower the cost of energy. Chugach Electric Association, Golden Valley Electric Association, Homer Electric Association and Matanuska Electric Association operate about 1,700 megawatts in power generation capacity. Peak Railbelt winter demand is half that: about 850 megawatts. Guess who pays for the nearly gigawatt in underused and unused power plants? You, on your power bill. The governor should force the co-ops to work together, reduce redundancies and diversify energy sources, including renewables, in order to reduce the sky-high cost of energy for Alaskans.

• Lower the cost of childcare. Alaska has inadvertently created a system of childcare permitting and licensing that effectively amounts to death by a thousand pieces of paperwork. It’s creating scarcity and cost. We need to fix it.

• Lower the cost of housing. Cut red tape to make it easier and cheaper to build more homes of all kinds — from tiny homes and ADUs to manufactured and modular housing, to apartments and condos, to traditional single-family homes. More housing of all kinds, faster.

• Rein in bottom-trawl bycatch. I will nominate Alaskans to the North Pacific Fishery Management Council who will make sure that Alaska and Alaskans — not Seattle and Lower 48 industry interests — foremost benefit from our fisheries.

• Responsibly develop our resources. Support projects that have regional buy-in and support, such as Pikka on the North Slope, which just produced first oil this month, while saying “no” when the risks are too great and those in the region are opposed, as is the case with Pebble.

• Grow our tourism economy. And let’s crack the code on winter tourism while we’re at it. If Iceland can do it, we darn well can, too. Fairbanks is having burgeoning winter tourism success. Let’s follow their great lead.

• Make Alaska an awesome place to live. Let’s build dozens more public-use cabins. Let’s build an alpine hut-to-hut system like they have in New Zealand and the Alps. Let’s build the Alaska Long Trail. Let’s make Anchorage a world-class winter city.

Does this sound like the kind of Alaska you want to live in? Then I have great news: We are the governor campaign for you. And if what you just read gives you indigestion, you’ll be relieved to know you have 17 other options.

I have more great news: I can win.

After beating an entrenched Republican incumbent, I spent a decade representing a swingy district that voted for Donald Trump.

In those 10 years, I recorded some of the highest margins of crossover support from Trump voters of any Democrat in Alaska. I ran 12% ahead of Hillary Clinton in 2016 and 15% ahead of Joe Biden in 2020.

Here’s the simple truth: Whoever becomes our next governor will need to win with the support of significant numbers of independents and moderate Republicans, in addition to Democrats. I’ve done that. And I’ll do it again. Will you join me?

Former state Rep. Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins of Sitka is a candidate for governor of Alaska.

• • •

The Anchorage Daily News welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary(at)adn.com. Send submissions shorter than 200 words to letters@adn.com or click here to submit via any web browser. Read our full guidelines for letters and commentaries here.

Source link