Snow, Ice & Permafrost Group
Permafrost warming continues throughout a wide swath of the Northern Hemisphere, according to a team of scientists assembled during the recent International Polar Year.
Their extensive findings, published in the April-June 2010 edition of Permafrost and Periglacial Processes, describe the thermal state of high-latitude permafrost during the International Polar Year, 2007-2009. Vladimir Romanovsky, a professor with the snow, ice and permafrost group at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute, is the lead author of the paper, which also details the significant expansion of Northern Hemisphere permafrost monitoring. 
University of Alaska Fairbanks scientists will travel to Greenland in April 2010 to better understand how warming ocean temperatures impact ocean-outlet glaciers on the massive arctic island. Such studies will shed light on the future of the ice-laden country, and may provide analogs on how warmer temperatures could impact Alaska’s landscape.
After working for the past decade toward increased permafrost monitoring in Alaska, scientist Vladimir Romanovsky is going global due to funding from the National Science Foundation. For the next three years, Romanovsky, a professor of geophysics at University of Alaska Fairbanks, and a researcher in the Permafrost Lab at the Geophysical Institute, will use a $945,000 grant to establish a network of permafrost observatories in North America and Russia.
The coastal mountains along the Gulf of Alaska and Alaska’s inside passage are home to the largest glaciers outside of the polar region. The close proximity of the Pacific Ocean to this region’s high mountains makes these glaciers especially dynamic. Tidewater glaciers sometimes exhibit wild instabilities that can lead to dramatic changes much larger than or even opposite to other glacier behavior.
Alaska played an important role in the first International Polar Year (IPY) in 1882-83, and scientists in state and around the globe are now gearing up for the fourth IPY, which begins this March and extends through March 2009. In a lecture on Feb. 5, Hajo Eicken, Associate Professor of Geophysics at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, will address the prospects that IPY-4 offers Alaska researchers, educators and the public to jointly address the challenges and opportunities of unprecedented change under way in the North.
Alaska played an important role in the first International Polar Year (IPY) in 1882-83, and scientists in state and around the globe are now gearing up for the fourth IPY, which begins this March and extends through March 2009. In a lecture on Jan. 16, Hajo Eicken, Associate Professor of Geophysics at University of Alaska Fairbanks, will address the prospects that IPY-4 offers Alaska researchers, educators and the public to jointly address the challenges and opportunities of unprecedented change under way in the North. Eicken is co-chair of the Research Subcommittee for UAF’s IPY Steering Committee and has been working for the past year to prepare for this historic event.
Alaska played an important role in the first International Polar Year (IPY) in 1882-83, and scientists in state and around the globe are now gearing up for the fourth IPY, which begins this March and extends through March 2009. In a lecture on Jan. 16, Hajo Eicken, Associate Professor of Geophysics at University of Alaska Fairbanks, will address the prospects that IPY-4 offers Alaska researchers, educators and the public to jointly address the challenges and opportunities of unprecedented change under way in the North. Eicken is co-chair of the Research Subcommittee for UAF’s IPY Steering Committee and has been working for the past year to prepare for this historic event.
There is evidence that the McGinnis Glacier, a little-known tongue of ice in the central Alaska Range, has surged. Assistant Professor of Physics Martin Truffer noticed the lower portion of the glacier was covered in cracks, crevasses, and pinnacles of ice—all telltale signs that the glacier has recently slid forward at higher than normal rates. It has not been determined whether the glacier continues to surge.
As the Arctic climate warms, permafrost begins to thermally degrade. Transformation of this frozen layer of earth triggers changes in every aspect of surface water and energy in the Arctic. While the region experiences warming, permafrost becomes thinner, and its extent in the boreal forest shrinks.
Alterations to permafrost also influence the look of the northern landscape and the region's climatology. In short, warming climate and thawing permafrost create changes to the entire hydrological cycle in Alaska.
Experts on climate change in Alaska and the Arctic will gather in Anchorage on Friday, Sept. 24 gave presentations on thinning Alaska glaciers, melting permafrost, and the possibility of shipping routes through the Canadian Arctic in the near future.
