NYT: The Race to Alaska Before It Melts

[DeepModem Mom]

The Race to Alaska Before It Melts


Peter DaSilva for The New York Times
Icebergs are all that can be seen of Portage Glacier from the Begich, Boggs Visitor Center; the glacier has retreated out of view.

By TIMOTHY EGAN
Published: June 26, 2005


....Alaska is changing by the hour. From the far north, where higher seas are swamping native villages, to the tundra around Fairbanks, where melting permafrost is forcing some roads and structures to buckle in what looks like a cartoon version of a hangover, to the rivers of ice receding from inlets, warmer temperatures are remaking the Last Frontier State.

That transformation was particularly apparent at the visitor center here, where rangers were putting the finishing touches on a display that sought to explain the changing landscape of the country's northernmost state. The sign said, "Glimpses of an Ice Age past. Laboratory of climate change today," and it explained how the Exit Glacier has been shrinking over the years, and what scientists are learning as the state heats up....

***

....the Great Land is definitely getting warmer. Last year was abnormally hot in the usually wet and cool southeastern part of the state, where cruise ships ply the Inside Passage. Anchorage, Fairbanks, Nome and Juneau all posted their warmest summers on record. More wildfires burned in 2004 than any other year on file. And by early May of this year, the woods were ablaze on the Kenai Peninsula, and the preternaturally quirky residents of Homer were gardening in cutoffs - at a time when snow was still falling in Detroit and Boston....

***

"It is probable the last decade was warmer than any other" since records have been kept, the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment reported on Nov. 24, 2004. The study is a project of nations including Denmark, Canada and the United States. The Bush Administration, which has been cautious about blaming global warming for any Alaskan changes, cites rising spring temperatures, loss of sea and glacial ice, melting permafrost and conversion of some parts of the soggy tundra into brushy wetlands among the changes taking place.

But to many Alaskans, global warming is not an abstraction or a theory. At least four native villages in the far north may have to move inland or to higher ground to avoid being swept away by erosion from the sea - a consequence, the villagers say, of early-melting sea ice that contributes to shore erosion. The melting ice may also affect polar bears, and whales, who live off the sea life beneath the ice....


http://travel2.nytimes.com/2005/06/26/travel/26alaska.html?pagewanted=all

[FizzFuzz]

1. what can I say?

there are no words.

:cry:

[Massachusetts]

2. The mass of humanity doesn't care!

Wait till WATER and FOOD become the problem, by then it will be too late to take care of all.

[thegreatwildebeest]

5. The Mass of Humanity...

...works 40 hour jobs for barely enough pay, if not two. The mass of humanity can generally not afford the more "eco-friendly" alternatives to various products or to are able to own the buildings they live in, thus limiting what, if any energy reduction/consumption they can do. The mass of humanity shops at Wal mart and eats McDonalds because it can afford little else.

This is always whats been the worst, and sickest point of the system itself. Economically, the lowest classes have little or no other choice but to fuel their own destruction. Decrying the "mass" for not "caring" when the mass of society can barely pay the bills is absurd. Put the blame squarely where it should lay, with the oligarchs and corpratists who tilt the playing field in their favor.

[XemaSab]

3. OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was at the portage glacier in 89 and the ice was halfway across the lake!!!!!!!!!!!! It had calved so heavily you could hardly see it!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Kool Kitty]

4. Unreal, right?

I was at Portage Glacier in 1983 and the glacier was about ten feet from the shore of the lake (right by the visitor's center). I'm glad we got to see it and photograph it, because there's not too much left of it.

[XemaSab]

6. Just depressing

that a feature that big would have almost vanished due to sheer negligence on our part.

[ramapo]

7. Never made it

I've always wanted to go but now it might seem like I'm going to a funeral:-(