Published Mar 31, 2023 by Evert Lindquist

Glaciers should exist in balance with climate, Menounos explained, but even the most extreme scenarios of reversing global warming at this point would do little to save them.

“If you suddenly turned off the greenhouse warming effect tomorrow, those glaciers would continue to lose mass,” he said. “Depending on where they are, they may lose something like one half of their mass, and that’s simply because they’re so out of balance with present-day climate.”

He added that while higher-elevation glaciers such as those in the Columbia Icefield between B.C. and Alberta would stabilize and continue to have small amounts of ice, many others would completely disappear.

The UNBC supercomputer helped the researchers examine how much mass glaciers have already lost in the last 20 years. Using space observations from NASA satellite ASTER, the computer collected stereo images of Earth’s surface that showed the change in glacier sizes. Up north, the researchers used another supercomputer at the University of Alaska Fairbanks to calculate glacier mass and how it changes based on location.

Published Mar 31, 2023 by Staff report.

The University of Alaska Fairbanks is seeking to form focus groups with communities of color in Fairbanks and Anchorage to learn about their outdoor experiences.

According to a news release, researchers from the UAF Institute of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Extension and YWCA Alaska are looking for people who identify as Alaska Native, Asian, Black, Hispanic, or Pacific Islander to participate in a two-hour focus group session. A meal is provided.

The discussion will focus on their experiences and thoughts relating to outdoor activities, recreation, and ways of being on the land.

“Information will be shared with communities and public land agencies to aid investment in diverse outdoor activities and support the ability of people of all racial and ethnic backgrounds to safely and comfortably be in outdoor spaces,” the release states.

Published Mar 31, 2023 by Staff report

University of Alaska graduate student workers will march today at noon on campus to campaign for a union. After filing a petition to form a union with the Alaska Labor Relations Agency, they say they seek to collectively bargain.

“We are coming together to show that there is incredible support for our union, and we are excited to demonstrate that support in a union election as soon as possible,” English graduate student KJ Janeschek said.

The event is at the Wood Center, UAF Campus.

The Alaskan Graduate Workers Association-UAW (AGWA-UAW) would represent over 550 employees statewide at the University of Alaska. They are the first student worker group in Alaska to file for union recognition.

Published Mar 31, 2023

In March 29 interview with Petroleum News, Rebecca Logan, CEO of the Alaska Support Industry Alliance, said the “end game” of the newly formed Alaska Oil & Gas Historical Society is a physical museum.

Logan and other Alliance members helped form the new non-profit.

“Alaska is the only oil-producing state that doesn’t have a historical society,” she said.

“In our first year we will be focused on founding members, collecting papers, pictures, books and the most important project will be our oral history project. We are working with the University of Alaska-Fairbanks on that project,” Logan said.

“A lot of the people we want to interview are in their 90s. UAF has a fantastic oral history department, so they are going to be doing most of work. We’ll give them the names of the people we want interviewed and they’ll do the interviews, editing and archive.”

In the first two years the society will be working on several things, some of which are as follows:

- Begin collecting previously recorded or in-person oral history from industry pioneers.

- Establish the long-term membership scheme and solicit donations.

- Secure an Anchorage-based facility for temporary storage and archiving the collection.

- Hire an archivist to implement the society’s system for CRM and cataloging of the collection