ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – A major storm hit Alaska, snagging traffic and cancelling flights as high wind and snow blew in for the start of the week.
Numerous warnings and advisories for high winds, snow, rain, and coastal flooding are in effect across the state. The Panhandle was the quietest part of the state Monday, but changes are on the way there too.
The large October storm is rotating over the northwest and will plow its way across the state over the next several days.
In southcentral, the snow is expected north of Talkeetna, where a winter weather advisory has been issued for 4 to 8 inches of snow. The chance of rain in other parts of the Kenai Peninsula will still serve to make roads and highways slippery. Winter driving caution is called for. Winds will also remain brisk in Anchorage and the Mat-Su valleys. Gusts will hit 35 mph in both areas.
The independent federal agency that provides Alaska with utilities, infrastructure and economic support is considering a number of new environmental hazards as it updates its statewide threat assessment.
In 2019, the Denali Commission published a detailed listing of climate change-related threats to communities around the state. The document, written for the commission by experts from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the University of Alaska Fairbanks, scored 187 communities according to the threats they faced from flooding, erosion, permafrost thaw or a combination of those impacts.
Now an updated report is in the works, with five more hazards added to the analysis: landslides, tsunamis, wildfires, earthquakes and volcanoes.
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Experts working on the updated Denali Commission report outlined the project at a panel discussion held Wednesday at the Alaska Forum on the Environment, a weeklong conference underway in Anchorage.
“It didn’t make sense to just look at permafrost thaw, erosion and flooding when there are new hazards that our communities are facing,” said Courtney Brozovsky, a geographic information systems specialist with a consulting firm contracted by the Corps of Engineers.
The list of new hazards can be further expanded or defined. “We’re also talking about ways that we can incorporate some other additional hazards such as glacial outburst flooding, typhoon and drought,” Jessica Evans, an environmental planner with the same contractor, AECOM, told the gathering.
The Denali Commission, an independent federal agency established by Congress in 1998, coordinates investments in rural Alaska infrastructure, economic development and public health. The 2019 threat assessment has been used to help guide those investments. The commission continues to function, despite attempts by the Trump administration to abolish it.
Of the new hazards that are slated to be added to the updated assessment, three have connections or possible connections to climate change. Landslides of different types are occurring around Alaska and are tied to forces like glacial retreat, permafrost thaw and heavier precipitation events. A University of Alaska Fairbanks and National Weather Service study published in November correlates the increase in reported Alaska landslides to reported average temperature increases of 1.2-3.4 degrees Celsius — roughly 2-6 degrees Fahrenheit — and 3-27% increases in precipitation over the last 50 years across Alaska.
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Landslides can cause dangerous localized tsunamis, as happened in Southeast Alaska’s Tracy Arm in August. And wildfire frequency and intensity have increased in Alaska as the climate has warmed.
Along with adding hazards to evaluate, other updates are intended to fill in past data gaps and to refine scoring methodology, Evans said.
The next step in the process is gathering public information, she said. After that, the team will try to figure out which hazards to aggregate, she said. The intended result is a more refined ranking system that focuses on relevant hazards for different geographic locations rather than grouping them all together, she said.
A draft report is expected in the summer, which will give more opportunities for public input. The final report is expected by the end of the year.
The Denali Commission has scheduled three events this month to gather public input on the project. The first is scheduled for Friday morning at the Atwood Building in downtown Anchorage. The second is scheduled for Feb. 10 at the Southeast Conference’s Mid-Session Summit. The third is scheduled for Feb. 26 at Zach’s Restaurant in Fairbanks.
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Alaska Beacon is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Alaska Beacon maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Claire Stremple for questions: info@alaskabeacon.com.
Milepost zero of the trans-Alaska pipeline system. (Marc Lester / ADN)
The Anchorage Daily News recently reported, “Though the global oil and gas industry is a major contributor to climate change, Alaska’s oil patch is not the direct driver of Alaska’s climate change impacts.” For the record, while Alaska oil may not be “the” driver of Alaska’s climate change impacts, it is a contributor.
Alaska has produced a cumulative total of about 20.4 billion barrels of oil — 19 billion barrels from the North Slope and 1.4 billion barrels from Kenai-Cook Inlet. At 564 kg CO2e emissions — the carbon dioxide equivalent of all greenhouse gases, including methane, nitrous oxide, etc. — per barrel of oil from all upstream (exploration and production), midstream (transportation and storage) and downstream (refining and use) sources, Alaska oil is responsible for releasing over 11.5 billion tons of CO2e to the global atmosphere, some of which will remain for centuries.
Additionally, Alaska’s production to date of some 9 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, primarily methane, has added another 500 million tons of CO2e to the global atmosphere.
Significantly, the combustion of crude oil produces about three times its weight in CO2, as two atoms of heavier oxygen combine with one atom of lighter carbon. So in fact, Alaska has produced far more CO2 than it has oil: 12 billion tons of CO2 versus 2.75 billion tons of oil — 20 billion barrels of oil divided by 7.3 barrels per ton.
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With cumulative global greenhouse gas emissions from human activities now at about 2.5 trillion tons, Alaska’s share of the global total is roughly 0.5%. So, Alaska oil and gas is responsible for approximately 0.5% of all historic climate change impacts globally, including in Bangladesh, Maldives, South Pacific islands, Africa, India, Australia, Antarctica, Greenland, Europe, South America, the Arctic, Asia, the Middle East, Russia and of course, here in Alaska.
Alaska then owns 0.5% of the cumulative global atmospheric carbon increase (from 280 parts per million pre-industrial to 427 parts per million today, a 50% increase), global sea level rise (8-9 inches), polar ice sheet loss (now over 400 billion tons per year), annual loss of 1.2 trillion tons of ice globally, loss of 50% of Arctic summer sea ice, a 30% increase in global ocean acidity, a sustained and dangerous increase in global ocean and air temperature, approaching the threshold of catastrophic warming, increases in extreme storms, floods, wildfires, heat deaths and ecosystem damage, the displacement of millions of climate refugees and trillions of dollars in economic losses. Policymakers generally ignore this significant, long term environmental impact of Alaska oil and gas.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimated the “Social Cost of Carbon” — the long term economic damage, e.g. to agriculture, human health, coastal infrastructure, natural systems, etc., caused from a ton of CO2 emissions — at $190 per ton. A more recent scientific study estimates costs of more than $280 per ton of CO2 released. At these rates, Alaska oil and gas is responsible for a total of $2.3 trillion to $3.4 trillion in long-term financial losses due to climate change across the world, significantly more than its cumulative market value.
To recap, Alaska’s 20 billion barrels of oil and 9 trillion cubic feet of gas to date has released 12 billion tons of greenhouse gases to the global atmosphere, causing $2 trillion-$3 trillion in long-term damage across the world.
And here at home, Alaska continues to suffer a disproportionate share of the overall ecological, social and financial damage from human-caused climate change, for which Alaska oil and gas shares at least some responsibility.
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Rick Steiner is a retired marine conservation professor from the University of Alaska.
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ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – Alaskan scuba divers spent Friday preparing to take the plunge into the icy harbor of Whittier on Saturday for their annual Whittier Harbor Cleanup.
Dive Alaska is hosting the event, as they have been for the past three years. Drawing as many as 120 volunteers, the organizers say they’ve been able to pull up as much as 5,000 pounds of trash from the harbor in years past and expect to gather around the same amount on Saturday.
“We had the idea to do it all over the state and we started honing into Whittier the last couple of years,” said J.D. Stimson, one of the organizers with Dive Alaska. “It is a massive community event. So, Dive Alaska is just a small, small, small piece of the pie. This is really a just massive community event in the middle of winter when everybody’s itching for something to do.”
The effort takes hours, and plenty of preparation, from rigging scuba tanks to loading food for the crowds who will gather to help in the cold.
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Whittier became the perennial choice because of its importance to the Southcentral region.
“So, it’s not just Whittier. It’s Anchorage. It’s the Valley. It’s people coming from Seward to go there if they don’t want to go out in Resurrection [Bay],” Stimson said. “It’s the gateway to all of Prince William Sound, and so it sees a ton of traffic, and we’ve noticed that it really needed a little bit more love.”
Stimson, a born and raised Alaskan from Cordova, said he’s been scuba diving since he was 11, and nothing is quite as rewarding as seeing the impact of the Whittier Harbor clean up.
“Everyone walks away stoked about it happening every single year, and I’m excited to just keep that momentum going,” Stimson said. “We start planning the next year’s harbor cleanup the moment the current year’s cleanup is over with, and it takes a full year to get this planned out to make sure that every every piece and part of this is moving the way it should. It’s a lot of work, but the payoff is so endearing and rewarding.
“And to see every community member show up and just, you know, even when we had miserably cold years, head down, working hard. Everyone’s a team. Everyone’s working together.”
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While unfortunately the harbor seems to regain a lot of the garbage they clear out each year, J.D. said the growing focus on ocean and waterway cleanup around Alaska in the last decade has been encouraging.
“There has been so much traction in Alaska through all these different communities, all these different organizations, all over the state to get out and clean up our waterways, and it’s awesome,” Stimson said. “There’s all kinds of recycling happening. There’s all kinds of like fishing net recycling happening. There’s plastic recycling. There’s industrial supply recycling.”
“The amount of traction that’s being gained in recent years is through the roof and it’s epic to see.”
Anyone is free to participate in the clean-up efforts, diver or not, as the group needs onshore support as well. Volunteers should arrive for the 9:30 Whittier Tunnel opening and should mention they are there for the harbor cleanup and the tunnel attendant will waive the usual fee.
“None of us, none of us are doing this for the glamour, the glory. That’s not the dive industry,” Stimson said. “We’re doing this because we love every single second of this. We love our community.”
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