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UAF graduate student Cole Richards installs a high-sampling seismic sensor in February 2019. It is one 400 placed along the Parks Highway following the 2018 magnitude 7.1 Anchorage earthquake. Graduate student Bella Seppi would later use the sensor data in her aircraft research. Photo by Carl Tape

Seismic data can identify aircraft by type

November 18, 2025

Instruments typically used to detect the ground motion of earthquakes can also be used to identify the type of aircraft flying far overhead...

A light beam produced by the new lidar emerges from the dome at the Subauroral Geophysical Observatory at Gakona. Photo by Mike Roddewig

New lidar advances atmospheric science at UAF research site

November 14, 2025

A new science tool at the University of Alaska Fairbanks research center in Gakona will advance understanding of Earth’s middle and upper...

Tom Glass and Rodrigo Rangel navigate a beaver pond on the northern Seward Peninsula in August 2024. Photo by Benjamin Jones

Beavers’ Arctic expansion quickens impact of region's warming

November 13, 2025

The climate-driven spread of beaver ponds in Alaska’s Arctic accelerates the effects of a warming environment by causing pond-adjacent permafrost...

The aurora shines over Fairbanks on Oct. 5, 2024. Photo by Bryan Whitten

Triple blast of solar activity sets stage for active aurora show

November 11, 2025

An unusual triple-whammy of solar outbursts, including one scientists call a cannibal, began hitting Earth this afternoon and is likely to bring...

Marita and Walt Babula walk hand in hand Oct. 11, 2025, at the site of a 65-seat planetarium. The Babulas made a previously anonymous donation of $7.4 million to the project. Photo by Bryan Whitten

UAF planetarium set for spring opening

October 30, 2025

A decades-long dream of a planetarium at the University of Alaska Museum of the North will come to fruition this spring when the University of...

Associate research professor Carl Schmitt with the cloud particle imager he developed. Photo by Bryan Whitten

Researcher helps examine puzzling Arctic Ocean ice fog

October 17, 2025

A type of cloud that forms low near Alaska’s northern coast and over the Arctic Ocean lasts far longer than scientific understanding says it...

Pascal Buri, left, holds a drone ready for flying in the Swiss Alps in August 2021 for the study of how mountain glaciers interact with the atmosphere. Thomas Shaw of the Institute of Science and Technology Austria prepares to pilot the drone. Photo courtesy of Pascal Buri

Mountain glaciers will lose their insulating air layer, study finds

October 16, 2025

A natural cooling mechanism has been shielding the world’s mountain glaciers from increasingly warm summer melt seasons, but new research by an...

Two Windracers ULTRA aircraft, which ACUASI purchased to test cargo deliveries and emergency responses to remote Alaska locations, occupy a hangar in Nenana. Photo by Jason Williams/ACUASI

ACUASI adds new drones for cargo trials

October 14, 2025

Two large-payload unmanned aircraft have joined the fleet of the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ drone industry development program. They will be...

Mount Edgecumbe rises in the foreground with Crater Ridge behind and to the north on May 19, 2022. Photo by Max Kaufman/Alaska Volcano Observatory

Scientists aim to map Mount Edgecumbe volcano’s upper plumbing

October 9, 2025

Mount Edgecumbe volcano in Southeast Alaska sits in a place where a volcano shouldn’t really be sitting. Research underway with new federal...

This map of Northern Hemisphere sea ice concentration for Sept. 24, 2025, also shows the contours of the 15% edge during the years with the least extent of ice (in red) and the greatest extent of ice (in orange) during the period from November 1978 to the present. Image courtesy of NASA

Alaska climate report: Sea ice growth and other winter transitions

October 7, 2025

Sea ice has returned to its annual growing season, though it’s a slow turnaround as usual. The Arctic sea ice extent likely reached its 2025...

Lee Ann Munk of the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute at a National Science Foundation event in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 18, 2025. Photo by Steve Masterman

UAF critical minerals proposal a finalist for NSF funding

September 19, 2025

A University of Alaska Fairbanks proposal to reduce the United States’ dependency on foreign sources of minerals critical to the technology and...

Most of Point Lay’s residential area sits on permafrost that is rapidly thawing. The subsiding ground exposes more of each building’s support pilings. UAF photo by Benjamin Jones

Research highlights rapid permafrost thaw at Point Lay, Alaska

September 16, 2025

A team of scientists working with local residents has detailed the rapidly accelerating “catastrophic” permafrost thawing and infrastructure...

The seasonal transition that began in August and continues in September is well underway in Interior Alaska. The season’s changing colors are visible around the West Ridge of the University of Alaska Fairbanks Troth Yeddha’ campus in early September. UAF photo by Eric Marshall

Alaska climate report: August, a time of meteorological change

September 9, 2025

August was a bit of a weather yo-yo in some parts of Alaska. Kotzebue, Nome and Bethel had warm weather in the month’s first week but cooler than...

Drilling to the bed of thick, flowing ice is highly challenging and has never been undertaken for the sustained period required to maintain the drainage of subglacial water, the researcher paper’s authors write. Illustration is from the research paper

Researchers reject geo-engineering as a climate-warming response

September 9, 2025

Proposals to reduce climate warming in the polar regions through geo-engineering rather than carbon emission cutbacks would be dangerous and...

Some of the 300 people who attended the 2024 Alaska Defense Forum listen during a session at the Westmark Fairbanks Hotel and Conference Center. The 2025 forum, set for Aug. 25-27 at the 8 Star Event Center, is the sixth year the forum has been held. Photo by RED Photography

Geophysical Institute organizes defense forum to discuss shared goals

August 21, 2025

The University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute has organized this year’s Alaska Defense Forum, which brings together military leaders...

Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha’apai volcano is one of 12 confirmed submarine volcanoes along a segment of the larger Tonga-Kermadec volcanic arc. Photo courtesy of Tonga Geological Services via the Smithsonian Institution’s Global Volcanism Program

2022 Pacific volcano eruption made a deep dive into Alaska

August 20, 2025

Atmospheric waves from a massive 2022 South Pacific volcanic eruption created seismic waves that penetrated Earth to at least 5 kilometers in...

Debris from an Aug. 10, 2025, landslide in Southeast Alaska spilled into Tracy Arm and onto South Sawyer Glacier. Dirt, rock and debris now fill an area of the fjord in the lower left of the photo. Image from video by Lt. Chip Baucom and Cmdr. PJ Johansen, U.S. Coast Guard

Tsunami-causing slide was largest in decade, earthquake center finds

August 12, 2025

Sunday’s massive tsunami-causing landslide in Southeast Alaska likely sent more than 100 million cubic meters of debris into an icy fjord and...

Monthly mean temperature departure from normal, July 2025, at selected stations in Alaska. A technical issue in Yakutat is causing erroneously high temperature readings at the station.

Alaska climate report: Above and below normal, July had it all