A big earthquake could send a tsunami up Cook Inlet. Would it reach Anchorage?
After the Nov. 30 earthquake, Anchorage residents received a smartphone alert warning of a tsunami risk and instructing them to seek higher ground.
Science
Big changes from warming climate boost risk of toxic algae blooms off Alaska coasts, report says
Last winter’s ‘remarkable’ shortage of ice in the Bering Sea added to the warming that is a factor in the blooms, scientists said.
A new warm-water ‘blob’ emerges in the Gulf of Alaska
The new “blob” could affect weather and fisheries in Southeast Alaska, but scientists said it doesn’t appear as strong as the first one in 2013.
Chunks of the Arctic Alaska coast are falling into the sea, but why?
The Arctic Ocean has recently eaten house-size chunks of tundra at a rate of more than 50 feet per year.
When do tremors stop being aftershocks and start being new earthquakes?
Earthquakes come in clusters, and seismologists refer to the largest one in a sequence as the “mainshock."
Why the climate change problem is starting to look too big to solve
A climate expert says: “There’s no silver bullet. There’s silver buckshot.”
Why the 7.0 earthquake was felt differently across Anchorage
A person’s perception is critical, but other factors count too.
‘We’re all shaken up': It’s normal to feel scared, anxious and helpless after a big quake. Here’s what to do about it.
It’s not just you. People all over Southcentral Alaska had trouble sleeping, leaped at every aftershock and woke today with a kind of earthquake hangover.
Fairbanks air earns an unwanted pollution ranking
Tiny particles, much of them from wood stoves, give the city, on its worst days, air as thick as Beijing’s.
A rogue ice shelf covering the Arctic Ocean?
Thousands of years ago, this shore was an ocean beach.
Alaska experiencing some of the most extreme climate change in the U.S. says new report
“Alaska is on the front lines of climate change and is among the fastest warming regions on Earth,” says a major new federal report.
Enormous blast in Siberia more than a century ago remains a mystery
If the Tunguska event was not from a heavenly body crashing into or exploding just above Earth, what was it?
Study finds healthy polar bear population in Chukchi Sea
The study found that the population is thriving for now despite a loss of sea ice because of climate change.
Can scientists build a blueprint for bluefin tuna?
One biotech company’s work to ‘culture’ it would eliminate the need for fishing.
Alaska chickadees are brainier than their southern counterparts
In a laboratory experiment, Alaska birds — which must survive very short days and extreme cold — cached about twice as many sunflower seeds as Colorado birds and later found them much more quickly.
Arctic humidification contributing to less ice, more heat
Less sea ice may be causing Alaska to become less continental. That means differences between summer and winter temperatures are getting smaller.
So long, Kepler, and thanks for all the planets
The Kepler Space Telescope, NASA’s powerhouse planet hunter, is out of fuel at age 9.
How a tiny Alaska moth can alter the behavior of moose
Researchers found that sandbar willows on the Tanana River flats infested with the leaf miners in early summer are not the first choice of moose in winter.
Alaska’s Redoubt among 18 U.S. volcanoes ranked as ‘very high threat’ in new assessment
The U.S. Geological Survey is updating its volcano threat assessments for the first time since 2005.
3.5 million pounds of Alaska moose meat goes into freezers each year
People go a long way and spend a lot of money to pursue Alaska’s most-hunted animal because it’s a tradition for many.