UAF permafrost scientist receives $1.8 million in grants
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
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.
PDF DownloadUAF-Geophysical Institute student dies in mountaineering accident
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
The Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska Fairbanks is saddened to learn of the death of Karoline Frey, a 27-year-old graduate student with the instituteʼs snow, ice and permafrost group.
Frey, a native of Altensteig, Germany, died on March 24 after falling into a crevasse on a small glacier on Item Peak in the Alaska Range. Frey was on a spring break skiing vacation with a group of friends at the time of the accident.
Chance discovery: Alaska Range glacier surges
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.
Southeast Alaska's changing glaciers
For Immediate Release
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 glaciers help drive rise in sea level
An Alaska researcher and her colleague from the University of British Columbia have calculated that the rate of sea-level rise due to the meltwater from glaciers in Alaska and elsewhere will increase by as much as 60 percent by the year 2100, and that half of the world’s smallest glaciers won’t survive until then.
Study finds permafrost warming, monitoring improving
CONTACT: Brian Keenan, Geophysical Institute PR assistant, at 907-474-5229, info [at] gi [dot] alaska [dot] edu.
Fairbanks, Alaska — Permafrost warming continues throughout a wide swath of the Northern Hemisphere, according to a team of scientists assembled during the recent International Polar Year.
Greenland’s melting landscape may foreshadow Alaska’s future
CONTACT: Brian Keenan, GI Outreach Office, 907-474-5992, info [at] gi [dot] alaska [dot] edu
Fairbanks, Alaska— 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.
