Published Nov 29, 2023 by Gavin Struve

The University of Alaska Anchorage men’s basketball team was the only of the four squads present at the Alaska/Hawaii Challenge to win both of its games in the event. The Seawolves, ranked No. 23 nationally, have since progressed to 8-0 overall and are set to face the same next two opponents as UAF in reverse order later this week.

While the season is still in its infancy, UAA has achieved all of this after being slotted just seventh in the GNAC preseason coaches poll on the tails of a 13-14 (7-11 GNAC) 2022-23 campaign. They’ll play the Nanooks in UAF’s next home game on Saturday, Jan. 6 and host the ‘Nooks a month later.

UAA women’s basketball is 2-3 overall after an 0-2 stretch against Division I competition at the Great Alaska Shootout in games counted as exhibitions. Like the UAF men and women and the UAA men, the UAA women will play at Seattle Pacific and MSU-Billings later this week. They were picked third in the GNAC preseason coaches poll after an 18-10 season and host UAF on Saturday, Jan. 13 before heading to Fairbanks, where they were upset last season, a month later.

Among winter sports, the hockey rink is the lone setting where these two Alaskan universities have faced off. UAA is 0-2 against the Nanooks after a weekend in Fairbanks in early November but has a chance to return the favor Friday and Saturday in Anchorage.

The Seawolves (6-9-1) split a weekend series with a win over No. 6 Wisconsin after upsetting another ranked Big Ten team, Penn State, on the road just before playing UAF the first time. Despite these marquee wins, UAA sits at 41st in the PairWise rankings, which are designed to approximate the NCAA tournament selection committee’s approach, while UAF is 26th.

Among fall sports, UAA — the GNAC volleyball champion last season — finished a middling 16-17 overall (8-10 GNAC). That was good for sixth in the conference standings this fall. The Seawolves were under the direction of a first-year head coach, Stacie Meisner, but beat the Nanooks twice in as many tries this season by winning six of seven sets.

The second win, in Anchorage for both teams’ season finale, gave the Seawolves the edge over the ‘Nooks (14-18, 7-11) by one game in the final conference standings. UAA also beat UAF in both of their matches in the 2022 season.

While the UAA men were the only Alaska team to qualify for the NCAA Cross Country Championships, they were without 2022 All-American Cole Nash and placed last among 34 teams. The Seawolves advanced after placing fifth at the West Region meet, while the UAF women’s team also finished fifth in that setting but qualified just two individuals, both of whom finished as All-Americans. The UAA women placed 12th among 24 West Region teams.

UAA’s ski team, part of the dominant Rocky Mountain Intercollegiate Ski Association alongside UAF, begins its season in December.

Published Nov 29, 2023 by Yereth Rosen

Rick Thoman, a scientist with the Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, gave a similar warning.

The rain-triggered landslides in Southeast Alaska are “certainly climate-change related,” he said. Warmer oceans mean a warmer atmosphere that results in more water being poured over the landscape, including in more extreme events, he said.

“These extreme precipitation events, whether it’s a single storm or it is a wetter season, this is exactly what we would expect in a warming world,” he said.

The storm that triggered the Wrangell landslide – along with numerous others in Southeast Alaska – dumped more than 3 inches on the community, Thoman said. While that itself is not an unusual amount of rain for Wrangell, it followed an unusually wet fall that had already saturated the ground, he said. And the storm brought high winds that were unusual and may have contributed to the landslide risks, he said.

Even without climate change, Wolken said, landslides are ever-present in Southeast Alaska. The region, covered by mountains and a rainforest, with topography carved by glaciers and permafrost and with occasional earthquakes, is by nature susceptible to shallow slides known as “debris flows” that result from the separation of surface soil and rock from the layer above bedrock, he said.

But climate change, by increasing the amount of water that loosens debris, adds to the vulnerability, Wolken and other scientists say.

Published Nov 28, 2023

Poker Flat Research Range, owned and operated by the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ Geophysical Institute under contract with NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility, is known primarily for launching sounding rockets. These rockets – basically flying tubes of scientific instruments – soar into different levels of the atmosphere to take in situ measurements that are difficult to obtain through other methods. This month, one mission – named Dissipation – could have exciting implications for NASA’s Geospace Dynamics Constellation (GDC) mission.

Published Nov 28, 2023

The recent deadly landslide in Wrangell is the third lethal landslide since 2015 in southeast Alaska. Natural disasters are frequent in Alaska, but is a changing climate increasing the number and severity of these events? What’s the latest science on monitoring mountain slopes to better calculate risk and provide early warning? We discuss the science of understanding landslide risk on this Talk of Alaska.

GUESTS:

• Dennis Staley, Research Physical Scientist, Alaska Volcano Observatory
• Dr. Gabriel Wolken, Manager, Climate and Cryosphere Hazards Program, Alaska Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys; Research Professor, International Arctic Research Center at UAF
• Aaron Jacobs, Senior Hydrologist, National Weather Service, Juneau
• Lisa Busch, Executive Director, Sitka Sound Science Center

Published Nov 28, 2023 by Carter DeJong

More than 30 people hiked or skied to T-Field on the University of Alaska Fairbanks campus Monday night to honor three state scientists and a pilot who were killed in a July helicopter crash in the North Slope Borough.

On July 20, a 1996 Bell helicopter crashed into Lake Itinik near the village of Wainwright. Alaska Department of Natural Resources scientists Ronald “Ronnie” Daanen, 51, Justin Germann, 27, and Tori Moore, 26 were killed in the crash along with pilot Bernard Higdon, 48.

Three Interior Alaska white birch trees, which are planted side-by-side at T-Field, have been named in honor of the three scientists.

Published Nov 28, 2023 by Bryce J. Ward and Savannah Venetis Fletcher

Partnering with UAF to expand the Bunnell House model is the best option for the borough. The borough will not need to spend tax dollars and staff time renovating its own facility, instead UAF will retrofit the old University Park Elementary. And UAF’s Bunnell House model provides children with licensed childcare from UAF students studying early childhood education. This means the borough will not need to find a childcare provider — a resource it would be hard-pressed to find. Instead we will be able to provide childcare to employees while also training and growing our childcare workforce. For more information on the University CTC Early Childhood lab school check out https://tinyurl.com/25k45f7p.

And partnership is key. If the borough’s funding request is approved, it means the university’s facility would be able to accommodate 100 more children than the current design and may allow for non-university partnerships for childcare. This would be an opportunity for other employers to offer childcare spaces to their employees. The borough is obviously interested in this as an option for borough employees but also for other employers or community partners. Supporting additional childcare facilities and training is the right move for Fairbanks and helps us meaningfully move the needle on childcare.

As the editorial board stated, the university has its own process for advocating for legislative funding of projects. But the list of university needs is long and within that list of university priorities, UAF must compete for statewide priority ranking among all the universities, and that has often meant we get left in the cold. Our borough won’t let this opportunity slip past us. Instead we should rally our community in support of this project, because it is the community as a whole that will serve to benefit.