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Water temperature plays a large role in freshwater ecosystems in the Arctic and sub-Arctic. It affects the physical and biological features of rivers, like how the water interacts with the landscape and the life cycles of organisms that live in the river. For example, unseasonably warm water temperatures in Alaska’s large rivers in 2019 caused large numbers of salmon to die before they could reach their spawning grounds. Though water temperature data is important for natural resources monitoring programs, these data are historically lacking and hard to collect for large river systems. Satellites and other remote sensing techniques can offer valuable insight to Alaskan stream conditions. They can measure thermal...
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In the Gulf of Alaska, streams will experience more dramatic low water events, interspersed with larger and potentially more frequent high flow events in the coming decades. Reduced stream flows are likely to occur due to diminished snowpack and seasonal droughts, while higher flow events are likely to occur with more frequent storms and rain-on-snow events. These changes are likely to influence the growth trajectories of juvenile salmon, such as coho salmon and chinook salmon, that live up to two years in freshwater before migrating to the ocean. Stream flows can influence juvenile salmon growth by modifying food availability, water clarity, temperature, and predation risk. This high-resolution study examines...
Shellfish harvesting is central to coastal Alaska Native ways of life, and tribes in Southeast Alaska are committed to preserving sustainable and safe access to subsistence foods. However, consumption of non-commercially harvested shellfish puts Alaska Native communities at elevated risk of exposure to shellfish toxins. To address a lack of state or federal toxin testing for subsistence and recreational harvesting, tribes across Southeast Alaska have formed their own toxin testing and ocean monitoring program. In this study, we interviewed environmental managers responsible for tribes' testing and others with shellfish toxin expertise to report on perceptions of barriers to tribally led testing in Southeast Alaska....
Categories: Publication; Types: Citation
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Salmon runs are an important time when salmon migrate from the ocean to freshwater, swimming upriver to reach spawning beds. These annual events provide an important food source for both predators and for local communities. However, Recent declines in salmon runs have caused hardship in subsistence fishing communities throughout Alaska, particularly in the Yukon River Basin. To adapt to a changing climate, fishing communities, natural resource managers, and scientists need to measure and understand climate impacts onto salmon runs in this region. To monitor changes in salmon populations and manage fisheries, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADFG), U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), and Tanana Chiefs...
Abstract (from The Cryosphere): We combine a glacier outburst flood model with a glacier flow model to investigate decadal to centennial variations in outburst floods originating from ice-dammed marginal basins. Marginal basins can form due to the retreat and detachment of tributary glaciers, a process that often results in remnant ice being left behind. The remnant ice, which can act like an ice shelf or break apart into a pack of icebergs, limits a basin's water storage capacity but also exerts pressure on the underlying water and promotes drainage. We find that during glacier retreat there is a strong, nearly linear relationship between flood water volume and peak discharge for individual basins, despite large...
Categories: Publication; Types: Citation
The large, highly glacierized Copper River basin is an important water resource for the south‐central region of Alaska. Thus, information is needed on the reaction of its hydrologic timing and streamflow volumes to historical changes in climate, in order to assess the possible impact of future changes. However, the basin is remote, and therefore, it has proved difficult to collect field data in a frequent temporal and spatial manner. An extension of the distributed‐parameter, physical‐process code Precipitation Runoff Modeling System, PRMSglacier, has been specifically developed to simulate daily hydrology without requiring extensive input data. In this study, PRMSglacier was used to characterize the hydrology of...
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Assessments that incorporate areas from land-to-ocean, or “ridge-to-reef", are critical to examine how land-use practices are altering stream discharge and nearshore marine health and productivity. Stream systems in both Alaska and Hawaiʻi are expected to experience changes in water quality associated with changing environmental conditions and increased human-use. Watershed systems throughout the Hawaiian Islands are currently experiencing impacts from climate change that affect groundwater recharge and surface runoff, erosion, and total streamflow, and cause degradation of nearshore marine habitats. This study can provide useful insight for both Alaska and Hawaiʻi by providing resources on how patterns in stream...
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Winter snowpack provides critical water resources for human populations and ecosystems throughout western North America. Increasing temperature and changing precipitation patterns are expected to alter the extent, amount, and persistence of snow in this region. Observations of snowpack and related hydroclimate variables are limited and sparse. This project will capitalize on recent advances in water balance and snow modeling as well as the development of comprehensive North American tree-ring datasets to produce spatially specific, annually resolved, and management relevant reconstructions of snow, streamflow, and warm season temperature. The project researchers will focus specifically on spatiotemporal reconstructions...
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Understanding freshwater flow is frequently highlighted as a priority in land management planning and assessments. Changes in climate can impact streamflow through reduced snowpack and snowfall, earlier spring runoff, increased winter flow and flooding, and decreased summer flow. In Southeast Alaska, streamflow is expected to shift dramatically in response to changes in factors such as precipitation and air temperature. Understanding how streamflow might change is instrumental not only for predicting changes in plant distribution and soil moisture, but also for infrastructure planning. Culvert replacement, bridge design, hydropower development, water reservoir placement, and floodplain restoration planning all require...
Streamflow controls many freshwater and marine processes, including salinity profiles, sediment composition, fluxes of nutrients, and the timing of animal migrations. Watersheds that border the Gulf of Alaska (GOA) comprise over 400,000 km2 of largely pristine freshwater habitats and provide ecosystem services such as reliable fisheries for local and global food production. Yet no comprehensive watershed‐scale description of current temporal and spatial patterns of streamflow exists within the coastal GOA. This is an immediate need because the spatial distribution of future streamflow patterns may shift dramatically due to warming air temperature, increased rainfall, diminishing snowpack, and rapid glacial recession....
Categories: Publication; Types: Citation
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Scientific information can be used to help individuals, communities, and governments alike make more informed decisions. However, for people to become aware of the science that could inform their decisions and its relevance to their lives and decisions, it must be communicated effectively. Multiple obstacles prevent this from happening, including scientists’ lack of time and communication expertise, among other barriers. This pilot project is a novel internship program that pairs student interns with USGS scientists to assist with field-based natural or physical science research in Alaska, while also providing support to the teams of interns and scientists to generate creative and durable science communication...
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Alaska is an ecologically, commercially, and recreationally diverse state, providing value to people and terrestrial and aquatic species alike. Presently, Alaska is experiencing climatic change faster than any other area of the United States, but across the state, comprehensive environmental monitoring is logistically difficult and expensive. For instance, only about 1% of U.S Geological Survey (USGS) stream gages are in Alaska, and only about 50% of those gages measure water temperature, an important climate change indicator. In this study, predictive models are being used to map stream temperatures under current and future climate scenarios across the Yukon and Kuskokwim River basins (YKRB) at the stream reach...
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Marine shellfish are an important diet and cultural resource for many Alaskans. Harmful algal blooms can produce toxins which accumulate in shellfish and can cause disease and death in consumers. Climate change is predicted to expand the timing and strength of harmful algal blooms which may affect food security for many Alaska Native Tribes and communities. Predicting when the shellfish are safe to consume is a critical component of establishing food security and adapting to climate change. Local traditional knowledge from Tlingit elders indicates that herring spawning events, which typically occur in April or May in Southeast Alaska, provide a warning signal for when to stop harvesting shellfish. The environmental...
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Since the early 1970s, the negative impacts of small aircraft activity on local wildlife and subsistence hunting have been an ongoing concern expressed by rural communities in Arctic Alaska. More specifically, these communities have expressed concern that aircraft activity from industry, commercial (sport) hunting, research, and tourism is disturbing caribou by altering their behavior and movement and, for rural communities who rely on the subsistence hunting of caribou for food and resources, this change in behavior has reduced hunting opportunities. Residents of rural communities and agencies who manage human-wildlife interactions have requested more involvement of local stakeholder groups in the process addressing...
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Drought events have cost the U.S. nearly $245 billion since 1980, with costs ranging from $2 to $44 billion in any given year. However, these socio-economic losses are not the only impacts of drought. Ecosystems, fish, wildlife, and plants also suffer, and these types of drought impacts are becoming more commonplace. Further, ecosystems that recover from drought are now doing so under different climate conditions than they have experienced in the past few centuries. As temperature and precipitation patterns change, “transformational drought”, or drought events that can permanently and irreversibly alter ecosystems – such as forests converting to grasslands – are a growing threat. This type of drought has cascading...
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Ongoing climate change is impacting areas of snow and ice in high latitudes and high elevation areas and is thus anticipated to change the frequency and magnitude of snow and ice related hazards. In Alaska, snow avalanches are the deadliest natural hazard, and they affect a large portion of the state, significantly impacting the natural landscape, the built environment, and public safety. As climate warming continues, it is expected that Alaska’s vulnerability to avalanche hazards will also continue to increase. Currently, there is limited public awareness and available information to support adaptation, mitigation and preparedness efforts for these hazards. The goal of this project is to improve understanding...
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Forecasting fires in Alaska are, like anywhere else, “wicked problems” as wildfires arise from complex, climatically-driven social-environmental systems. However, given Alaska’s unique human and environmental histories and rapidly changing climate, the region features a combination of factors that may not exist anywhere else in the network. A useful fire synthesis for Alaska must, at the same time, therefore advance understanding of a) the dynamics of and responses to future wildfire, and b)management planning for and adaptation to those projected changes. Through existing research-management collaborations, the Alaska CASC has iteratively refined its approach to actionable (both by fire managers and agency planners)...
Abstract (from ScienceDirect): Ice wedge polygons on the North Slope of Alaska have been forming for many millennia, when the ground thermally contracts in the winter and water fills in the cracks during the snowmelt season. The infiltrated water then freezes and turns into ice. In this paper we investigate temperature dynamics around the ice wedges and surrounding permafrost. A 2-D nonlinear heat equation with phase change is utilized to compute temperature across the ice wedge and surrounding area. Thermal properties of the ground material are estimated by assimilating temperature measurements in the center of ice wedge polygons. The developed finite element model is successfully validated using two analytical...
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Ecosystems spanning the zones from “ridge-to-reef" and “icefield-to-ocean” are home to relatively high levels of biodiversity; serve as conduits of nutrients to sensitive coastal environments; and are culturally and economically important to local communities. These systems are smaller and have unique geological and streamflow properties compared to more typical river systems and, because of this, it is not clear how they will respond to shifting climatic patterns. Both Hawaiian ridge-to-reef and Alaskan icefield-to-ocean ecosystems face the potential of climate-driven changes in extreme flow events, such as floods and droughts, that could dramatically change how critical nutrients are retained and transported....
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Berries are a crucial nutritional and cultural resource to communities and ecosystems in boreal, subarctic and arctic areas; however, berry abundance and the timing of the berry lifecycle is becoming more variable and unpredictable due to climate change. Climate adaptation plans across the state of Alaska identify changes in berry timing and availability as primary concerns and point to the need for increased monitoring and research on how climate change is influencing berries. While there is a large body of work on plants that produce berries, much of the information is not accessible to those who need it most: land managers and communities planning for an uncertain future. This project will address this critical...
map background search result map search result map Projecting Future Streamflow in Southeast Alaska Water Resource Relevant Hydroclimatic Reconstructions for Western North America State of the Science Synthesis on Transformational Drought: Understanding Drought’s Potential to Transform Ecosystems Across the Country Alaska’s Berry Future: Planning for Changing Resources in an Altered Climate Climate Adaptation in Yukon River Fisheries: A Robust Alternative Approach to Assess Salmon Run Size Using Environmental DNA Combining Local Traditional Knowledge and Machine Learning to Predict the Future Safety of Alaskan Shellfish Harvests in a Changing Climate Future Changes in Snow Avalanches in Southern Alaska The Influence of Stream Flow Patterns on Juvenile Salmon Growth in Southeast Alaska Climate Vulnerability of Aquatic Species to Changing Stream Temperatures and Wildfire Across the Yukon and Kuskokwim River Basins, Alaska Coral Response to Land-to-Ocean Freshwater Flux: A Ridge-to-Reef Perspective Future of Fire in Alaska: Towards a National Synthesis of Wildland Fire Under a Changing Climate Studying the Influence of Streamflow Variability on Fish Populations to Understand Nutrient Transport in Hawaiian and Alaskan Streams in a Changing Climate Addressing Small Aircraft Noise Conflicts with Subsistence Hunting in Alaska Parks and Preserves – A Structured Decision Making Approach Compilation of Historical Water Temperature Data for Large Rivers in Alaska using the Landsat Satellite Archive Alaska's Changing Habitats: A Multi-System Approach for Understanding Climate Impacts in High Latitude Regions Coral Response to Land-to-Ocean Freshwater Flux: A Ridge-to-Reef Perspective Projecting Future Streamflow in Southeast Alaska Addressing Small Aircraft Noise Conflicts with Subsistence Hunting in Alaska Parks and Preserves – A Structured Decision Making Approach The Influence of Stream Flow Patterns on Juvenile Salmon Growth in Southeast Alaska Climate Vulnerability of Aquatic Species to Changing Stream Temperatures and Wildfire Across the Yukon and Kuskokwim River Basins, Alaska Alaska’s Berry Future: Planning for Changing Resources in an Altered Climate Climate Adaptation in Yukon River Fisheries: A Robust Alternative Approach to Assess Salmon Run Size Using Environmental DNA Combining Local Traditional Knowledge and Machine Learning to Predict the Future Safety of Alaskan Shellfish Harvests in a Changing Climate Future Changes in Snow Avalanches in Southern Alaska Future of Fire in Alaska: Towards a National Synthesis of Wildland Fire Under a Changing Climate Compilation of Historical Water Temperature Data for Large Rivers in Alaska using the Landsat Satellite Archive Alaska's Changing Habitats: A Multi-System Approach for Understanding Climate Impacts in High Latitude Regions Studying the Influence of Streamflow Variability on Fish Populations to Understand Nutrient Transport in Hawaiian and Alaskan Streams in a Changing Climate Water Resource Relevant Hydroclimatic Reconstructions for Western North America State of the Science Synthesis on Transformational Drought: Understanding Drought’s Potential to Transform Ecosystems Across the Country