With Governor Sarah Palin joining the Republican presidential ticket, Alaska has been in the news a lot this week.
Governor Palin disagrees with the global scientific community about how much human activity, and fossil fuels, have to do with climate change.
There is no debate, however, about whether temperatures are rising in Alaska.
It was recently reported that the amount of Arctic sea ice melt this year is the second highest behind last year, and the melt season isn’t over yet.
The fellowship trip I was on spanned several days. We were based in the south central region of Alaska where mountains, glaciers, and forests dominant the landscape. I stayed for several more days and saw the impacts of climate change throughout my travels.
There is no doubt that the Alaskan landscape is changing.
Exit Glacier
In the Kenai Fjords National Park, a gravel path winds through a forest and leads to the edge of Exit Glacier. Along the way, small signs mark yearly dates and show this glacier’s retreat.
“You can come and walk and see the retreat from 1815 all the way to present,” said Brenda Ekwurzel, climate scientist for the Union of Concerned Scientists. “And as you get towards the present time period, you see the pace of retreat of the glacier is much faster in time and also more distance in the retreat. So, you see the change in acceleration when you have higher temperatures that have happened over the past several decades.”
Exit Glacier starts at the Harding Icefield, the largest Icefield in the U.S. It’s a sea of white, blanketing the tops of jagged mountains in south central Alaska, and it’s shrinking too. Warmer temperatures have caused this melting.
The global surface temperature increased by one degree in last few decades. But in the Arctic, the temperature increase is more pronounced. Over the last few decades, the average temperature has risen at twice the rate of temperatures elsewhere.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is more confident than ever that human activity is the cause, largely due to burning fossil fuels, like coal.
Warmer temperatures and melting glaciers contribute to rising sea levels. Globally, the sea level has risen between five to nine inches in the last century.
Kenai National Wildlife Refuge
While the seas are rising, Alaskan wetlands are drying. The moss in these wetlands feels spongy underfoot, but samples of the earth below our feet show shrubs are growing here for the first time in 13,000 years.
“What we noticed early on when we started taking cores was that the woody material was all at the top, and basically it was just live roots from the shrubs and trees that were growing on these peatlands right now,” U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Ecologist, Ed Berg, said. “We didn’t find dead wood in the cores. Now wood preserves very well in peat.”
Burg said the warmer temperatures dry the wetlands, improving growing conditions for shrubs and trees, like the Black Spruce. As part of a “feedback” effect, more Black Spruce trees could mean warmer temperatures, since a Black Spruce forest reflects sunlight poorly and is more susceptible to forest fires.
Sea Life Center,Seward,Alaska
Our trip also stopped at the Sea Life Center in Seward, Alaska. Money from the Exxon settlement over the 1989 Valdez oil spill helped pay for the center. A bird sanctuary showcases a dozen or so of the different sea birds that call this part of the world home, at least part of the year.
This is also where we met Alan Springer, a researcher and professor of marine science at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks. He said global warming is not doom and gloom for all; some of these sea birds actually enjoy the warmer weather. But it’s clear other animals, like polar bears and seals, don’t fare as well. They hunt and live on the diminishing sea ice
“Compared to long term average, we have very little sea ice in summer up here, and despite this past winter, which was cold in Alaska . . . despite that, we’re on course for beating the record from last year,” Springer said.
The loss of sea ice contributes to the Arctic’s rising temperatures, another example of global warming “feedback.” The ice reflects sunlight, but when it disappears and the dark ocean is exposed, heat is absorbed instead. It’s like the difference between wearing a white t-shirt and a black t-shirt on a sunny day.
“The first climate change refugees”
The loss of sea ice also impacts coastal villages, which are now more exposed to storms and erosion.
“The ones that are in the front lines are these five that have to move within the next five years or sooner at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars,” said Alaskan Native and longtime community and environmental activist, Larry Merculieff. “I maintain we’re going to have our first American climate change refugees here in Alaska, and I say first because there are going to be many more and not just Alaska.”
It’s clear that West Virginia isn’t feeling the impact of climate change as much as Alaska, but warmer temperatures are in the forecast, especially in the winter months.
The EPA completed a state assessment of West Virginia and climate change in 1998. It showed that the average temperature has increased about one degree in the last 100 years and precipitation has increased by as much as 10% in some parts of the state.
But the agency has not released any state assessment since then.
Nonetheless, West Virginia is part of the climate change conversation, especially this year. You can bet clean coal and carbon sequestration are phrases we’ll hear a lot more of as the presidential candidates talk about ways to reduce this country’s dependence on foreign oil and combat global warming.