More tropical nights in Alaska’s future? By Ned Rozell [fusion_dropcap]B[/fusion_dropcap]y the end of this century, Alaskans may be enjoying tropical evening breezes for about a week each year. That's an increase from the almost zero such nights we currently savor. But it could happen, according to a graduate student who has tightened the grids of [...]
Lack of sea ice near Savoonga, Alaska and Lower 48 weather By Ned Rozell [fusion_dropcap]L[/fusion_dropcap]ast month, villagers in Savoonga landed a bowhead whale. Before 2017, in every January people can remember, sea ice surrounded St. Lawrence Island, locking it in for the winter. Boat-launching and whale-taking were not possible. Now, the disc of ice chunks [...]
To Alaska and then some for Yukon Lynx By Ned Rozell [fusion_dropcap]A[/fusion_dropcap] lynx that roamed more than 200 miles from Kluane Lake in the Yukon Territory to near Chitina is still being tracked across the Alaska landscape, thanks to a curious couple living off the Edgerton Highway. A lynx that a couple in Kenny [...]
Living On An Alaska Glacier By Ned Rozell [fusion_dropcap]C[/fusion_dropcap]ANWELL GLACIER — This summer, Sam Herreid has slept for 12 nights on these rocks that ride slowly downhill on a mass of ice. For a few days at a time during the last six summers, the 28-year-old has lived on this ephemeral landscape in the eastern [...]
Exotic ticks found on Alaska dogs, Alaskans By Ned Rozell [fusion_dropcap]W[/fusion_dropcap]hile Alaskans have long endured dense mosquitoes and frigid air, we’ve always had the absence of venomous snakes and dog ticks. But the latter may be establishing themselves here. Ticks that infest red squirrels, snowshoe hares and a variety of birds have always been present [...]
Introducing “Nanuq,” the mini tyrannosaurus of Alaska's North Slope By Ned Rozell [fusion_dropcap]S[/fusion_dropcap]eventy million years ago, the baddest predator on top of the world was a pygmy tyrannosaur about half the size of Tyrannosaurus rex. The creature became known to the world in mid-March 2014, when Texas-based dinosaur hunters Tony Fiorillo and Ron Tykoski unveiled [...]
Alaska's Augustine Volcano Has An Amazing Legacy By Ned Rozell [fusion_dropcap]A[/fusion_dropcap]ugustine Volcano sits alone, a 4,000-foot pyramid on its own island in Cook Inlet. Like many volcanoes, it has a tendency to become top heavy. When gravity acts on Augustine's oversteepened dome, rockslides spill into the ocean. A scientist recently found new evidence for an [...]
Evidence Of What Killed St. Paul Island Wooly Mammoths By Ned Rozell [fusion_dropcap]U[/fusion_dropcap]sing the tiniest of clues, scientists have determined what probably killed the woolly mammoths of St. Paul Island — thirst. “It looks like climate did them in,” said Matthew Wooller, the UAF scientist who in 2013 went to St. Paul as part of [...]
Alaska Bears Harass Unmanned Science Instruments By Ned Rozell [fusion_dropcap]I[/fusion_dropcap]nterior Alaska is a hungry place — lots of boreal forest and swampy wetlands with big, flat rivers winding through. Wildlife sightings, especially of big mammals, are rare. But a recent video posted by a seismologist makes the Tanana River flats look like the Serengeti. A [...]
Cos Jacket - A Ghost Town on the Tanana River By Ned Rozell [fusion_dropcap]C[/fusion_dropcap]OS JACKET — On a canoe trip down the lower Tanana River, we've scrambled up a sandy bank to explore a place that is less populated now than it was a century ago. No one, in fact, lives at Cos Jacket anymore. [...]
