Published Jul 28, 2023

U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) delivered another round of investments for Alaska in the FY24 Interior-Environment Appropriations Act. Murkowski, who serves as Ranking Member of the Subcommittee, directed significant investments to water and wastewater systems for communities throughout Alaska while also supporting funding to research the salmon decline crisis in the state.

Fairbanks: $3.5 million for the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) to acquire a radiocarbon dating instrument and conduct research on identifying rare earth elements, volcano and earthquake activity, and mercury concentrations in food.

 Anchorage: $239,000 for the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA) to research the relationship between rock glaciers and downstream water quality through an interdisciplinary comparative field program.

Published Jul 28, 2023 by Jim Tatum

However, until fairly recently, the default monitoring process largely consisted of real people monitoring video screens in real time, for designated periods of time, manually recording what they observed, and attempting to extrapolate the needed data from those observations.

 For example, the University of Alaska participated in a study regarding installation of two power generating turbines in the Kvichak River, near the town of Igiugig, AL. The remote town had for years produced all its energy with diesel fuel that had to be flown into the town, making the cost of electricity very expensive. The town, and the state of Alaska, wanted to know if power generated by underwater turbines would be a viable, cost-efficient solution.

However, the river, which is pristine, is one of the largest salmon runs in the world, and many people in the state rely on the fishing economy as a vital part of their livelihood. They wanted to ensure that the turbines would not negatively impact the fish, or otherwise cause any unintended environmental consequences.

 Two turbines were placed under the water on the riverbed. MarineSitu deployed a camera system near the turbines, and UA scientists physically monitored and gathered data.

“They basically had people working round the clock, monitoring a computer screen for six-hour shifts at a time, and they literally hand counted fish they observed on the screen,” Joslin says.

Both Joslin and Plainsight Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer Elizabeth Spears note that, while the data gathering and analysis was conducted as thoroughly as possible, it seems clear that such a process will benefit greatly from AI-assisted models.

 “It is very labor intensive. In the past, for marine environments, monitoring was available only in snapshots,” Spears says. “With the AI models, it’s a night and day difference in the quality and level of monitoring you can do.”

Published Jul 28, 2023 by Erik Klemetti

Volcanic ash is made of volcanic glass, crystals and rock fragments. You can imagine that a jet engine on a typical long-haul commercial aircraft might suck in at least 100-400 kilograms of air per second at cruise. At an average flight level of 40,000 feet, that works out to around 170,000 to 680,000 cubic meters of air going into one engine per second of flight.

The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) has set the limit for maximum volcanic ash in the air for commercial aircraft at 4 milligrams per cubic meter. That's not a lot! 

The Alaska Volcano Observatory in Fairbanks is tasked with monitoring the over 100 volcanoes in Alaska (plus helping out even now with the Russian volcanoes in Kamchatka). Shishaldin awoke after a few years of quiet this month and it did so in spectacular fashion, sending ash over 36,000 feet above the volcano. Ash rapidly spread with the winds. This was all preceded by a small spatter cone of lava forming in the summit crater.

Shishaldin is one of six Alaskan volcanoes are elevated alert status, including Great Sitkin (Orange/Watch), Aniakchak (Yellow/Advisory), Cleveland (Yellow/Advisory), Semisopochnoi (Yellow/Advisory) and Trident (Yellow/Advisory). Some of these volcanoes have been at elevated alert for years, so Shishaldin might not be fleeting visitor to the list.