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Latest Climate Change

The Lewis Glacier on Mount Kenya, one of the few glaciers in Africa, in March. (Luis Tato/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images)

News

Some glaciers will vanish no matter what, study finds

Glacial ice will melt for centuries even if global temperatures stop rising now, according to new research.

The retreat of the Bear Glacier, near Stewart, British Columbia, transformed a stream below it into a haven for salmon. (Max Graham/Grist)

News

Who will benefit from melting glaciers?

In a remote corner of North America, salmon and mining companies are vying for new territory.

Debris from a home that partially fell into the Mendenhall River due to a record glacial outburst flood remains on the riverbank on Sunday, Aug. 6, 2023. (Mark Sabbatini / Juneau Empire file photo)

News

Trump executive order seeks to block states and municipalities from enforcing their climate policies

Order could affect everything from recently enacted state carbon laws to Juneau’s renewable energy goals.

A Mendenhall Valley neighborhood is swamped by a record glacial outburst flood on on Aug. 6, 2024. (Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities photo)

News

Profits from ‘fully’ extracting Alaska’s resources minus the cost of climate impacts: Who will gain/lose how much?

The results may not be high either way since experts say Trump’s goals are unlikely to happen anytime…

Sunrise over Prince of Wales Island in the Craig Ranger District of the Tongass National Forest. (Forest Service photo by Brian Barr)

Opinion

Southeast Alaska’s ecosystem is speaking. Here’s how to listen.

Have you ever stepped into an old-growth forest alive with ancient trees or traveled a shoreline with migrating…

Common murres are clustered together on a cliff ledge in the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge on July 30, 2019. Annual monitoring of key nesting sites has found that the common murre population has yet to recover from the massive die-off caused by the marine heatwave known as the “Blob.” It was the biggest wildlife die-off in modern times, a new study says. (Photo by Brie Drummond/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)

News

Alaska birds suffered biggest die-off in recorded history in ‘Blob’ heat wave, new study says

4 million deaths of common murres during the intense North Pacific marine heatwave.

An intersection in the Mendenhall Valley is submerged during record flooding from Suicide Basin on Aug. 6. A report published last week states such flooding is the result of glacier melt occurring due to climate change. (City and Borough of Juneau photo)

News

Believe it or not, costs and damage of climate change are expanding in Juneau and elsewhere in Alaska

Record flooding, fatal landslides, decimated seafood industry cited as regional impacts in new report.

Þorsteinn Þorsteinsson looks at a moulin on the Sólheimajökull glacier on Oct. 20. A moulin, or glacier mill, is a crevasse through which water enters a glacier from the surface. (Jasz Garrett / For the Juneau Empire)

News

Breaching a gap of 3,296 miles: Iceland’s experience with jökulhlaups

Glacial outburst floods a threat there for more than 1,100 years — what can Juneau learn from them?

Vincent Colliard navigates past glacier crevasses on the Juneau Icefield during a three-week crossing with fellow polar explorer Børge Ousland as part of their Ice Legacy project, which seeks to cross the world’s 20 largest icefields to raise awareness about the Arctic and impacts climate change is causing there. (Børge Ousland / Copyright photo used with permission)

News

Two polar explorers add to their ‘Ice Legacy’ with perilous 20-day crossing of the Juneau Icefield

Børge Ousland and Vincent Colliard overcome collapsing snow bridges, impassible crevasses, other challenges.

Andy Park, a National Weather Service Juneau meteorologist, shows U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski equipment at the weather station near the Mendenhall Glacier on Friday. (Photo courtesy of Lisa Murkowski)

News

Assembly OKs $3M for flood study as Corps of Engineers experts arrive to consider near-term options

Two straight years of major floods “has got the attention” of federal officials, Murkowski says.

Vincent Colliard (left) and Børge Ousland examine a map of the Juneau Icefield at the Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center on Friday night before giving a presentation about their planned crossing of the icefield. (Mark Sabbatini / Juneau Empire)

News

Two famed polar explorers crossing Juneau Icefield to prove large point about shrinking glaciers

Børge Ousland and Vincent Colliard attempting to cross Earth’s 20 largest icefields in climate campaign.

The sticker-covered wall outside the Prudhoe Bay General Store, a landmark in the community of Deadhorse, is seen on Aug. 22, 2018. Behind it is an oil equipment and oil-related facilities sited at Deadhorse, just outside of the Prudhoe Bay field. On Tuesday, temperatures reached 89 degrees at the industrial camp community, the highest ever recorded there and likely the highest ever recorded at this latitude anywhere in North America. (Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)

News

Record-high temperatures bake Deadhorse and other sites on Alaska’s North Slope

A scorching hot day in Alaska’s Arctic set multiple records on Tuesday, according to the National Weather Service.

“Dreaming the Future” written by Mike Tobin and directed by Donnie Gott, and performed as part of the Climate Fair for a Cool Planet at Bill Overstreet Park on Saturday, ends with actors in an electric bus driving toward the future. (Jasz Garrett / Juneau Empire)

News

Climate Fair for a Cool Planet cultivates a culture of change with songs and theater

Record rain in Juneau and record-high global temps are both worrisome signs, organizers say.

Anchorage musician Quinn Christopherson sings to the crowd during a performance as part of the final night of the Áak’w Rock music festival at Centennial Hall on Sept. 23, 2023. He is the featured musician at this year’s Climate Fair for a Cool Planet on Saturday. (Clarise Larson / Juneau Empire file photo)

News

Climate Fair for a Cool Planet expands at Earth’s hottest moment

Annual music and stage play gathering Saturday comes five days after record-high global temperature.

The piedmont terminus of Taku Glacier, one of more than 1,000 glaciers in the Juneau Icefield in Southeast Alaska. (Bethan Davies / The New York Times)

News

Study finds Juneau Icefield melting at an ‘incredibly worrying’ pace

Melt rate between 2015-19 twice as fast as before 2010; nearly five times as fast compared to 1980s.

A 2018 view of Suicide Basin and the Mendenhall Glacier. (Photo from National Weather Service Juneau)

News

‘Building a weather-ready nation’: What’s new for Suicide Basin’s outburst flooding

New monitoring equipment improves forecasts after last year’s record flood, experts say at town hall.

The entrance to the Alaska Gasline Development Corp.’s Anchorage office is seen on Aug. 11, 2023. The state-owned AGDC is pushing for a massive project that would ship natural gas south from the North Slope, liquefy it and send it on tankers from Cook Inlet to Asian markets. The AGDC proposal is among many that have been raised since the 1970s to try commercialize the North Slope’s stranded natural gas. (Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)

News

Eight young Alaskans sue to block proposed trans-Alaska natural gas pipeline

Plaintiffs cite climate change that harms their access to fish, wildlife and natural resources.

The “Newtok Mothers” assembled as a panel at the Arctic Encounter Symposium on April 11 discuss the progress and challenges as village residents move from the eroding and thawing old site to a new village site called Mertarvik. Photographs showing deteriorating conditions in Newtok are displayed on a screen as the women speak at the event, held at Anchorage’s Dena’ina Civic and Convention Center. (Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)

News

Relocation of eroding Alaska Native village seen as a test case for other threatened communities

Newtok-to-Mertarvik transformation has been decades in the making.

A wolf carries a piece of prey while walking through a national park in Alaska. (National Park Service photo)

News

In an era of climate change, Alaska’s predators fall prey to politics

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The result of the Wrangell landslide is seen on Nov. 20. (Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities photo)

Opinion

An Alaska climate expert reviews 2023’s weather and climate highlights

While Alaska didn’t have an ex-typhoon Merbok style widespread high impact event in 2023, there was still lots…