| UA News for January 3, 2024 |
| In December 23 - 31, 2023 news: UAF is receiving a $9 million federal grant to study carbon capture and storage; the UAF ski team won the Nordic Cup for skiing as UAF hockey prepares for its first showing at the Great Lakes Invitational Tournament; a recent report on climate assessment noted that climate change has significant impacts on the mental health of Arctic residents in addition to the many environmental impacts; a 4-H outreach officer invites Alaskans to re-think New Year's Resolutions and strive to come up with a goal that will help someone else; Interior legislators react to Governor Dunleavy's budget proposal including funding for the university; a deeper look into the proposed Alaska capital budget includes UAF projects for carbon capture and storage, long-term data governance, renovations at U-Park for a childcare facility, and increased capacity for PhD graduates; 2023 was the hottest year in recorded history, with records broken in the Arctic, oceans and many other areas; the Cooperative Extension Service will offer certified food safety manager training in January; UAA basketball star Jaron Williams cheered on the East High School team to support his former basketball program; and Ned Rozell breaks down some of the key findings in the 2023 Arctic Report Card.
Email mmusick@alaska.edu to suggest people to add to this daily news summary. |
| | | Could a new Alaska coal power plant be climate friendly? An $11 million study aims to find out. | Published Dec 30, 2023 by Nathaniel Herz Northern Journal The Biden administration has announced a $9 million grant to Alaska researchers to study a project that could capture carbon emissions from a big new coal-fired power plant and inject them in a depleted natural gas field not far from Anchorage.
The University of Alaska Fairbanks would lead the research into what’s known as carbon capture and storage, or CCS.
That’s a still-emerging field that boosters say could help fight global warming while reorienting the petroleum industry to profit from less environmentally harmful projects — even as research shows that CCS is expensive and still hindered by technical challenges. Critics say it’s largely a distraction from the need to shift to proven renewable energy sources like wind and solar.
The new CCS grant is one of 16, and $444 million in total, announced by the U.S. Department of Energy last month. The department aims to expand carbon storage infrastructure “to significantly and responsibly reduce CO2 emissions from industrial operations and power plants,” it said in its announcement.
| | | Readership | 829,160 | Social Amplification | 30 |
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| | | Thinning ice and shrinking caribou hurt not only safety and food security but also mental health | Published Dec 29, 2023 by Alena Naiden Declining salmon and thinning ice affect not only food security and physical safety but also the mental health of the Arctic residents, a new report finds.
Last month, the U.S. government released the fifth National Climate Assessment, a report that describes climate changes, projects future conditions and evaluates adaptation and mitigation options.
The Alaska chapter of the report was created by scientists, residents, as well as experts from health and fishing industries, said Adelheid Herrmann, a researcher who works for the Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy under the International Arctic Research Center in Fairbanks. Warming waters causing a decline in salmon and permafrost thaw and storms damaging the infrastructure were among the topics they discussed.
The changes in the environment add stressors to the residents of the Arctic, many of whom are already dealing with historical and personal traumas, Herrmann said. Some are losing their ability to go out and hunt because animals don’t visit their area in the same numbers or at the same time. Others worry that they don’t know how drastically and quickly their environment is going to change.
Even the growing number of requests from scientists to collaborate in numerous Arctic studies can add stress to residents in rural Alaska communities.
“In addition to all that you’re dealing with,” Herrmann said, “you have to deal with climate change and climate grief and losses related to climate.”
| | | Readership | 829,160 | Social Amplification | 0 |
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| | Challenge to Make a Different Kind of Resolution | Published Dec 29, 2023 by Pam Dunklebarger As we start the new year, I want to challenge you to make a different kind of resolution. I want you to come up with a goal that will help someone else, which, in the long run, will help you. What would that be?
Whatever you decide to do, make it meaningful to someone else and you. But I challenge you to give of your time and yourself somehow.
The feelings of belonging, self-worth, compassion and love are some of the greatest gifts we can give a person. I hope you will set an extra resolution this year that will show someone you care about them and will ultimately give back to you a feeling of self-worth.
If we all did it, imagine how this world would feel. Happy New Year, and welcome to 2024!
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| | | Millions for carbon-capture study, gas pipeline and a trail project: a tour of Alaska's capital budget | Published Dec 28, 2023 by Nathaniel Herz, Northern Journal • The University of Alaska Fairbanks is asking for $2.2 million to match a $9 million federal grant it’s applied for to conduct a feasibility study of a major carbon capture and storage project. The grant, from the Department of Energy, would allow the university to study the construction of a new, 400-megawatt power plant, and the potential to safely and cost-effectively store its carbon emissions—and those of two other “existing facilities”—in an underground reservoir on the north shore of Cook Inlet, a partially-depleted oil and gas reservoir near Anchorage, the university says in budget documents.
• The university system’s Alaska Center for Energy and Power is asking for $1 million next year, and $2 million in each of the following years, to develop what it calls a new “long-term data governance strategy”. The center says in budget documents that it will work with several other state agencies to “evaluate existing data sources for inclusion” in a single source.
• UAF is also asking for permission to accept $5.6 million in potential federal grant money that would pay for renovation of its University Park building into a childcare center. The work includes remodeling 10 classrooms and associated spaces to create “early childhood education labs and the construction of age-appropriate restrooms, eating and playground facilities”, the university says in budget documents, and major mechanical and electrical systems will also be updated. The university has “long needed more childcare and childhood development options for employees and student-parents”, it says.
• UAF is asking for $10 million in state funding, which would be matched with $10 million in university receipts, to help grow the number of its yearly PhD graduates to at least 70, from 40. The money, the university says in budget documents, would allow it to move from “Research 2” to “Research 1” under what’s known as the “Carnegie Classification System”, and the new status would be the “highest ranking of doctoral granting research universities in the United States”. Attaining the status would “provide global recognition for UAF’s high research productivity; enhance competitiveness for external funding; attract globally competitive faculty, staff and students, further improving the quality and caliber of UAF research and education; increase student enrollment; and provide economic benefits to the broader Fairbanks community and beyond”, the university says.
| | | Readership | 13,720 | Social Amplification | 0 |
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| | These were the heat records broken in 2023 | Published Dec 28, 2023 Humans have just experienced what will go down as the hottest year in recorded history -- so far -- as the planet experienced heating at an unprecedented pace.
Throughout 2023, records for the warmest temperatures around the world were broken one by one. But record-eclipsing temperatures will no longer be an anomaly if greenhouse gas emissions that fuel global warming continue at the current pace, according to climate scientists.
This year marked the hottest summer on record for the Arctic.
The Arctic is warming two to three times faster than the global average, which already dramatically affecting Arctic ecosystems, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's 2023 Arctic Report Card.
There were large big declines in Arctic snow cover in late spring, and the sixth-lowest sea ice extent on record, well below the long-term average, Rick Thorman, a climate scientist with the University of Alaska, Fairbanks' International Arctic Research Center, said earlier this month with the release of the report.
NOAA, Copernicus, the the U.N. and the World Meteorological Organization all released reports recently that said 2023 has been the warmest year on record.
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| Fairbanks Daily News-Miner | |
| Food protection manager course set for January | Published Dec 27, 2023 by Staff report The University of Alaska Fairbanks Cooperative Extension Service will offer a certified food protection manager training on Jan. 29, with proctors for testing available in 14 communities.
The food safety management training will be offered via Zoom from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. The computer-based certification exam is included, with proctors in Fairbanks, Glennallen, Haines, Homer, Juneau, Klawock, Palmer, Sitka, Skagway, Soldotna, Talkeetna, Tok, Unalaska and Valdez. If requested, proctors may be available in additional communities.
A certified food protection manager is responsible for monitoring and managing all food establishment operations to ensure that the facility is operating in compliance with regulations. State regulations require that food establishments have at least one certified manager on staff. Participants must register by Jan. 16 in order to receive the study guide on time.
| | | Readership | 89,944 | Social Amplification | 0 |
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| | Athlete of the Week: UAA’s Jaron Williams returns to East following GNAC POTW selection | Published Dec 27, 2023 by Tyler Purdom Whether it be a banner, number, or even something as small as a quote on the wall. These all serve two purposes. To remember those who came before, and to inspire the next group of players and coaches to win like they did.
Over at East High School, former alumni Jaron Williams showed that being present can be just as impactful.
The current UAA Seawolf was back for the Thunderbirds’ season opener just two days after being named GNAC player of the week and a career-high 29 points vs Hawaii Pacific.
What a time to be back too. Now in his senior year and his second with the Seawolves, Williams’ play has contributed to one of the best starts in school history, including an eight-game win streak to open the season. However, the team is still seeking its first conference win. And with Alaska Fairbanks on the docket, Williams says the next game is all business.
| | | Readership | 300,002 | Social Amplification | 47 |
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| | Alaska Science Forum: Yet Another Dramatic Arctic Report Card | Published Dec 27, 2023 by Ned Rozell This month, scientists here at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union rolled out their 18th version of the Arctic Report Card, a series of essays and data about environmental changes on top of the world put together by people at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association and featuring the work of many Alaska scientists.
In 2023, the jigsaw puzzle of sea ice floating on the world’s northern oceans was the sixth lowest during the forty-five years we’ve been able to view it with satellites. The ice’s extent has dropped each summer since that first Arctic Report Card in 2006.
Though that fact is really significant—northern sea ice is not anywhere near the reflective cap it was half a century ago, which allows open water to absorb heat—it was not the main focus of the five panelists who presented the Arctic Report Card.
The first news item announced to the assembled writers: In 2023 the land area north of the Arctic Circle experienced the warmest summer ever recorded. In addition, sea-surface temperatures in the north continued to warm, Canada had its worst wildfire season ever, snow cover continues to decline, and the northern tundra is greener than it was before.
This year, the editors also chose a new topic of particular interest to Alaskans: the crash of chum and Chinook salmon in the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers, along with simultaneous record numbers of sockeyes harvested in Bristol Bay in 2022. | | | Readership | 7,415 | Social Amplification | 0 |
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