Published May 2, 2023 by Ishveena Singh

Alaska Department of Transportation & Public Facilities (DOT&PF) is launching a new drone program, ARROW, that would benefit 10 remote communities during emergencies.

The Alaska Rural Remote Operations Work Plan (ARROW) will enable remote communities to conduct beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) missions using Skydio drones. The drone data will then be made available to a shared statewide geographic information system (GIS) and used in response to natural and man-made disasters affecting historically underserved communities.

Alaska DOT&PF explains that the ARROW drone program is made possible through a US Department of Transportation (USDOT) Strengthening Mobility and Revolutionizing Transportation (SMART) competitive grant program that funds projects using technology interventions to solve real-world challenges facing communities today.

ARROW further leverages a strategic partnership between the Federal Aviation Administration’s BEYOND Program and Alaska Center for UAS Integration (ACUASI) to enable BVLOS drone flights for critical infrastructure inspection.

Published May 2, 2023 by National Weather Service photo

Fresh Eyes on Ice is calling for Alaskans to send in pictures of river ice to help predict flooding.

“Because of the cold temperatures this spring, more than ever, citizen observations are valuable. The conditions are going to change quickly, and your observations can help,” said Katie Spellman, a research assistant professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. “This next week and the week after are going to be be important. Really, anywhere on the Tanana River is good; anywhere is awesome.”

All submitted photos go directly to the Alaska Pacific River Forecast Center, which is in charge of issuing flood warnings. Real-time photos help scientist make more accurate forecasts. The pictures will also be archived for further ice and snow research.

“We’re really trying to get people to submit observations — like, right now is great — before river ice really starts to degrade and melt. Even getting photographs from once ice has already cleared from rivers is really good to know,” said Chris Arp, a founding hydrologist at UAF. “So right now all the way through the break-up season, which probably will last all the way through May.”

In the past, the Fresh Eyes on Ice program has helped predict floods in Galina, Manley, Eagle and other communities in Northwest Alaska.

Published May 2, 2023 by Josh Reed

On the college scene, the UAA track and field team had a strong showing at the Ralph Vernacchia Invitational hosted by Western Washington University on Saturday. Senior sprinter Enrique Campbell won the 200 to lead the way for the Seawolves, who finished fifth out of 19 for the men and seventh out of 21 schools for the women.

His time of 21.55 ranks third all-time in program history; senior Mikayla Mader’s second-place mark in the high jump of 5-4.5 was the third-best ever by a Seawolf; and graduate student Drew Johnson came in second in the 1,500 with a time of 3:49.19, which not only ranks fourth-fastest at the school but also provisionally qualifies him for the NCAA Championships.

The UAA women’s basketball team announced a pair of additions from the junior college ranks this past week.

Published May 2, 2023 by Scienmag

The West Antarctic Ice Sheet is melting rapidly, raising concerns it could cross a tipping point of irreversible retreat in the next few decades if global temperatures rise 1.5 to 2.0 degrees Celsius (2.7 to 3.8 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels. New research finds that 6,000 years ago, the grounded edge of the ice sheet may have been as far as 250 kilometers (160 miles) inland from its current location, suggesting the ice retreated deep into the continent after the end of the last ice age and re-advanced before modern retreat began.

The study appears in AGU Advances, which publishes high-impact, open-access research and commentary across the Earth and space sciences. It presents the first geologic constraint for the ice sheet’s location and movement since the last ice age.

Published May 1, 2023

Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the University of Alaska Anchorage are the first to characterize two different types of surface water in the hyperarid salars -- or salt flats -- that contain much of the world's lithium deposits. This new characterization represents a leap forward in understanding how water moves through such basins, and will be key to minimizing the environmental impact on such sensitive, critical habitats.

"You can't protect the salars if you don't first understand how they work," says Sarah McKnight, lead author of the research that appeared recently in Water Resources Research. She completed this work as part of her Ph.D in geosciences at UMass Amherst.

Think of a salar as a giant, shallow depression into which water is constantly flowing, both through surface runoff but also through the much slower flow of subsurface waters. In this depression, there's no outlet for the water, and because the bowl is in an extremely arid region, the rate of evaporation is such that enormous salt flats have developed over millennia. There are different kinds of water in this depression; generally the nearer the lip of the bowl, the fresher the water. Down near the bottom of the depression, where the salt flats occur, the water is incredibly salty. However, the salt flats are occasionally pocketed with pools of brackish water. Many different kinds of valuable metals can be found in the salt flats -- including lithium -- while the pools of brackish water are critical habitat for animals like flamingoes and vicuñas.

One of the challenges of studying these systems is that many salars are relatively inaccessible. The one McKnight studies, the Salar de Atacama in Chile, is sandwiched between the Andes and the Atacama Desert. Furthermore, the hydrogeology is incredibly complex: water comes into the system from Andean runoff, as well as via the subsurface aquifer, but the process governing how exactly snow and groundwater eventually turn into salt flat is difficult to pin down.

Add to this the increased mining pressure in the area and the poorly understood effects it may have on water quality, as well as the mega-storms whose intensity and precipitation has increased markedly due to climate change, and you get a system whose workings are difficult to understand.

However, combining observations of surface and groundwater with data from the Sentinel-2 satellite and powerful computer modeling, McKnight and her colleagues were able to see something that has so far remained invisible to other researchers.

It turns out that not all water in the salar is the same. What McKnight and her colleagues call "terminal pools" are brackish ponds of water located in what is called the "transition zone," or the part of the salar where the water is increasingly briny but has not yet reached full concentration. Then there are the "transitional pools," which are located right at the boundary between the briny waters and the salt flats. Water comes into each of these pools from different sources -- some of them quite far away from the pools they feed -- and exits the pools via different pathways.

Published May 1, 2023 by Sunni Bean

This July, ONC is planning a Science and Culture Camp in collaboration with University of Alaska Fairbanks. The ten days are devoted to studying the natural world of the Y-K Delta for high-school students from the region. It’s free, and students can earn college credits.

Most of the activities include STEM classroom components, followed by time on the tundra.

“So we’re doing a Moose biology lesson with [the Alaska Department of Fish and Game], so they’re going to be talking about moose population management.” said ONC Natural Resources Technician Nia Long. She is organizing the camp. ”So we have our hunter who works for ONC. We're going to be applying for an educational cultural permit to harvest a moose, and then we're going to process it with the students.”

Students will also go to fish camp, where they’ll learn about its history and how to cut and dry fish with elders. Then the teens will learn from an ethnobotanist who works with the University of Alaska. Then she’ll bring the students out into the field to explore the medicinal properties of these plants.

“A lot of the ethnobotany is related to looking at traditional uses of these plants.” Long said. “So it's taking the general role of a botanist to study plant structure and use, and then also bringing in the cultural aspects and historical aspects of these plants into the lessons and education.”

Students who complete 28 hours of activities can receive 2 college credits through the University of Alaska Fairbanks. ONC and UAF staff worked together to design a curriculum that meets academic standards. They were intentional about tying together science learning and the historical importance of the environment in the culture, to show why they’re learning what they’re learning.