Alaska Sinks As Climate Change Thaws Permafrost

USA Today Pictures and video at link.

Well maybe not actually Alaska but anything sitting on top of Alaska. I imagine it's much the same in any populated region in the Arctic. The permafrost is melting rapidly causing all kinds of damage to roads, bridges, houses... any man made structure. Not to mention releasing more greenhouse gasses.

The wood deck moves up and down, like a slow-motion sleigh. "You leave for work and when you come home, it can be 7 inches higher," says Richard, 36, a married bookkeeper and mom of three children.

The nation's last frontier is — in many ways — its ground zero for climate change. Alaska's temperatures are rising twice as fast as those in the lower 48, prompting more sea ice to disappear in summer. While this may eventually open the Northwest Passage to sought-after tourism, oil exploration and trade, it also spells trouble as wildfires increase, roads buckle and tribal villages sink into the sea.

USA TODAY traveled to the Fairbanks area, where workers were busy insulating thaw-damaged roads this summer amid a record number of 80-degree (or hotter) days, as the eighth stop in a year-long series to explore how climate change is changing lives.

They are actually putting panels of housing insulation below the roads and then paving over it to try to keep the permafrost from melting. Not sure if that's such a great solution but then, I'm not a civil engineer.

Telltale signs are common — from huge potholes in parking lots to collapsed hill slopes and leaning trees in what are called "drunken forests" in Denali National Park, home of the majestic Mount McKinley — North America's tallest peak.

"You can see and hear the ice melting," says Ted Schuur, a permafrost expert at the University of Florida who's doing field studies in central Alaska. He says permafrost contains soil and plant matter as well as chunks of ice as big as cars. When the ice melts, the ground sinks. He's seen it with his own cabin near Fairbanks, which was listing until he leveled one side with adjustable foundation piers.

What does it mean for the many pipelines built in Alaska?

The perils of permafrost have long been known. Back in the early 1970s, government scientists insisted that parts of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline be built above ground with refrigerated supports.The pipeline's oil is hot and, if buried underground in permafrost, could help thaw the top layer and cause potential spills.

Maybe this will wake up some deniers eh? Probably not...

Many Alaskans are skeptical about the climate link. "Permafrost has been thawing since the last Ice Age," says Jeff Curley, an engineer for the Alaska Department of Transportation, saying its amount depends on naturally-occurring variability. He notes the state's temperatures have fluctuated every 30 or so years.

Donthcha just love how the "liberal" media and it's crusade to scare the pants off people with climate alarmism always ends with a caveat?


PNAS

Climate change already impacts the habitability of many Alaskan communities. The US Government Accountability Office found that flooding and erosion affect 184 of 213 of Alaska Native villages (12), with 31 of these imminently threatened, and 12 communities planning to relocate (10). [Throughout this article the term “village” refers to an Alaska Native community: (i) deemed eligible as a Native village under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act; and (ii) which has a corresponding Alaska Native entity that is recognized and eligible to receive services from the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Indian Affairs (10). The term “community” is used more broadly to describe Alaska Native villages as well as other population aggregations defined by geographic proximity.] Despite state and federal expenditure of millions of dollars, erosion control and flood protection have not been able to protect some communities. The inability of technology to protect people who reside in vulnerable risk-prone coastal and riverine communities could affect millions of people globally. The 2012 devastation caused by Hurricane Sandy exemplifies these risks. The state governments of New York and New Jersey are now evaluating whether rebuilding coastal communities is possible and whether erosion and flood control infrastructure can protect these communities in the future (13).

reply to post by Kali74


*FACEPALM!*





fairbanks-alaska.com...

One homesteader in the Fairbanks area found permafrost beginning 35 feet down. His neighbor a few miles away had to drill his well through 90 feet of permafrost. When the neighbor later sold his home and rebuilt 500 feet away, he encountered no permafrost whatsoever!

and...

The good news is that if the surface insulation can be removed or cleared away, the permafrost can then melt down to a level which will permit good natural drainage and which will cause no problems to, for example, gardeners. Of course, this may take a couple of years, but the result could be excellent garden soil. Much of the Agricultural Experiment Station land in Fairbanks is underlain by permafrost which by the early 1980's had melted down to 16 feet and which has caused no trouble for many years.

Permafrost "melting" is NOT an indication of global warming. It is very much like lower 48 "heat islands" observed in places like Phoenix and Vegas where the development, concrete, pavement, and loss of insulating natural ground cover has created non-natural "traps" for heat. This crap is really no different than spending every summer in the shade under a huge cottonwood tree in your back yard, then one summer chopping it down and sitting in the sun complaining about how you've never experienced such a hot summer in your back yard before.

If Climate change is real, and IF it’s caused by human activity, then our governments MUST do the following.

Manufacturers of all white goods (fridges cookers washing machines etc) must be forced to make those goods last for a minimum of 25 years. At the moment all those devices are deliberately designed to have a five year life span.

Manufacturers of clothing must be forced to produce clothing that lasts for 10 years minimum. At the moment they last barely a year.

Manufacturers of vehicles must be forced to make them last a minimum of 30 years. This is easily possible.

Homes must be designed to last at least 150 years. In the UK we are building homes that are designed for FIFTEEN YEARS!!!

Television and advertisers should be forced to stop promoting fashions and trends that cause us to throw away good items just so we can be trendy.

Public transport should be free as this would encourage people to leave their cars at home, thereby reducing pollution.

Where possible goods should be produced in the country they are intended for, thereby reducing the massive pollution caused by shipping.

I could go on and on…

You’ll notice NOT ONE of the above are even being considered, yet if we were to enforce those idea’s we’d reduce our use of resources and our output of waste by at least 75%
That equates to a 75% reduction in carbon output. Compare that with not doing any of the above….and the introduction of carbon taxes!
If you have a single brain cell still working it should be screaming at you right about now!
Carbon taxes do not reduce our consumption; they simply make a few people very rich.

I expect people will say the above would hurt the economy, right? Well what good is an economy if we’re all supposed to be swallowed up by rising sea levels? If climate change is real, and humans are the cause, the economy is irrelevant.

All of the above are rock solid ways of reducing carbon, and not one of them is being done.
That’s just ONE of the reasons why I don’t believe in the new religion

reply to post by burdman30ott6


That's not the "North Pole" -- it's a little town called North Pole. It's outside of Fairbanks and they have a fake Santa house with reindeer you can pet.

Climate change? We all laugh because it's been colder and dryer the past few winters. The summers have been cooler and wetter too. Typical convo last summer (2012):

"I wish we could have ONE week of sun!"

"I know, global warming my #!"

Kali74
Climate change already impacts the habitability of many Alaskan communities. The US Government Accountability Office found that flooding and erosion affect 184 of 213 of Alaska Native villages (12), with 31 of these imminently threatened, and 12 communities planning to relocate (10).

THEY USED TO BE NOMADIC PEOPLE!!!!
juneauempire.com...

In the 1940s most of the villages were sod houses that, for generations, were torn down and moved away from river and shore erosion because they were located at river deltas where salmon and caribou were plentiful! My God, the Tlingit people's name means "People of the Tides". This is not global warming, it's an example of how the westernized view of "You must live in a permanent dwelling so we can educate your children" destroyed their previous ways of life and is now used as a pawn in a giant ponzi scheme spearheaded by Al Gore's band of imbeciles.

This maybe off topic, but not by far regarding the continued debate. This video shows a Q&A session regarding if climate change is real and if(how much) we are responsible.

Humans put out 3% of CO2 compared to all life on the planet, which doesn't seem like much. However the
3% cumulative example using the gallon of water/gallon drain analogy makes sense.

MystikMushroom
That's not the "North Pole" -- it's a little town called North Pole.

Yeah, it's the location called out in the OP's source. It's also about a 6 hour drive away from me.

The climate is dynamic and changes are to be expected. This process will not be stopped, no matter how large a tax you levy on carbon emissions.

In the last 15 years global mean temperatures have not increased. The climate models the UN has been using have misjudged the amount of warming by more than 50%. This in spite of the fact that CO2 levels have risen. Artic and Antarctic sea ice actually GREW this year...in the case of Antarctica, it is at a 35 year high. An increase of 29%.

It bothers me to no end that I am called a "climate denier" merely because I follow the data. Global Warming or it's new iteration of "Climate Change" is a hypothesis that HAS NOT BEEN PROVEN. There are just as many scientists who doubt this hypothesis as there are that champion it. The truth is...climate scientists are at a loss to explain why the climate has not continue to warm as predicted.

The fact is that we simply do not know enough about the Earth's complex climate...the affects of solar radiation, oceans ect. to make any definitive assertions one way or the other.

Climate changes will continue to happen...the only question is whether we can adapt to those changes or not.

HAHA, I've been there (North Pole). I lived in Alaska for a time and the summers are hateful to me. It's like an Iowa spring with less tornadoes. Most Alaskans are tough folks who will adapt to whatever happens and won't be the first to those that start yelling "Disaster!" (except the politicians who want that Fed money eg. Backpedaling on Pot legalization when the fed threatened to not fund them anymore).

"Man-Made" global warming is ignorant, at least from a consumer perspective. You want to stop pollution? lets start with the chem-trails which have un-blue'd the sky, making the whole canopy glow so I can't hide from the light and pretty much go blind without serious eye protection. Or all the Chinese and Mexican factories that have little to no oversight in what they spew into the sky and companies who spew whatever they want as long as they paid for "Carbon Credits". Geez.

MystikMushroom
reply to post by burdman30ott6

 

That's not the "North Pole" -- it's a little town called North Pole. It's outside of Fairbanks and they have a fake Santa house with reindeer you can pet.

Climate change? We all laugh because it's been colder and dryer the past few winters. The summers have been cooler and wetter too. Typical convo last summer (2012):

"I wish we could have ONE week of sun!"

"I know, global warming my #!"

Blah blah.
The arctic ice sheets have grown 60% this year.

Time to pull out "acidification" as the new boogey man tax grab.

burdman30ott6

THEY USED TO BE NOMADIC PEOPLE!!!!
juneauempire.com...

In the 1940s most of the villages were sod houses that, for generations, were torn down and moved away from river and shore erosion because they were located at river deltas where salmon and caribou were plentiful! My God, the Tlingit people's name means "People of the Tides". This is not global warming, it's an example of how the westernized view of "You must live in a permanent dwelling so we can educate your children" destroyed their previous ways of life and is now used as a pawn in a giant ponzi scheme spearheaded by Al Gore's band of imbeciles.

burdman, can I have your babies?

It's a difficult discussion to have with anyone from the lower 48. You think Alaska is all igloos and parkas, not realizing that summer is ...hot, normally.

As far the "US Government Accountability Office", what are they accountable for? The only things that stopped the U.S. from tossing the Alaskan Natives on reservations was the fact that they incorporated which is a little creepy to me but okay. The statistic below sounds like something cooked up to request pity money and all the while, ANWAR is pretty much always under threat by people, in REALITY, for the sake of money, rather than the poor permafrost being under IMAGINARY threat by cow farts and me driving my VW to the other side of town. Nature and the world's ecology is far more resilient than humans are and while I'm not a pollution advocate, I doubt that will be the fulcrum that breaks the world. I'm sure that one day int he not so distant future, mama is going to wake up and roll over on the greater part of the human race. A reset that might be long over due so I wouldn't worry about some temperature variants, OP.

Kali74
Climate change already impacts the habitability of many Alaskan communities. The US Government Accountability Office found that flooding and erosion affect 184 of 213 of Alaska Native villages (12), with 31 of these imminently threatened, and 12 communities planning to relocate (10).

I am SO glad to see their lies fail. Not just here, but most people I talk to in the real world now recognize this man made global warming thing as pure nonsense.

Eventually the average idiot will realize you cannot trust ANYTHING that comes from the Government's tool-hole.

Unfortunately they also have a hand in our sciences. It will be unfortunate if we come to distrust all of science as well.

The scientists of this world need to stop bowing down to the government tit.
Same for the journalists.
Journalists actually make me sick to my stomach.

JayinAR
Unfortunately they also have a hand in our sciences. It will be unfortunate if we come to distrust all of science as well.

The scientists of this world need to stop bowing down to the government tit.
Same for the journalists.
Journalists actually make me sick to my stomach.

The zealous adoration of science and the outright dismissal of the metaphysical is something i deal with often, so I'm hanging out on the metaphys side more often, to try to balance weight, but STILL, I have no issue with good science with no agenda. These days it has an agenda, almost always.
How's this for a tidy little package showing the puppet strings.

These days:

Doctors don't heal or even do no harm, they medicate as they're instructed.
Police don't Protect and Serve, they assert control without thought.
Reporters don't investigate, they repeat what they're told.
Scientists don't apply impartial reason, they support the status quo for fear of peer reprisal.

And politicians do what they've always done.
At least someone's staying the course.

burdman30ott6

MystikMushroom
That's not the "North Pole" -- it's a little town called North Pole.

Yeah, it's the location called out in the OP's source. It's also about a 6 hour drive away from me.

I take it your're in Anchortown area-ish? I haven't been to Fairbanks/North Pole in probably 20 years. There's a reason we call it "Squarebanks". :LOL:

Wouldn't you say that besides this most recent summer, the summers have been cold, rainy and wet?

MystikMushroom
Wouldn't you say that besides this most recent summer, the summers have been cold, rainy and wet?

It's a 3 year cycle. We get one very cold, very rainy summer, one so-so summer that sees sunny days with mid 60 highs, and then a very warm, sunny summer. If you look back through the (limited) annual records of Alaska there also seems to be a roughly 60 year trend in which we see a "Super Summer" every 60 years or so. Those summers were preceeded/bookended by massive snowfall winters in the last cycle like this, 1952-1955. If things go according to the schedule, this winter will be a bit above average snow-wise and next winter will be another doozey.

reply to post by VoidHawk


I agree with you about carbon taxes and I like the solutions you propose. I have to say though that just because a solution is unfavorable that doesn't make the problem fictitious.

reply to post by burdman30ott6

JayinAR
Blah blah.
The arctic ice sheets have grown 60% this year.

Time to pull out "acidification" as the new boogey man tax grab.

The arctic ice sheets have not grown, even denier blogs don't try to claim that. What they claimed was sea ice grew 60% which isn't true either, less sea ice melted this year than last.

You can go test the ocean pH yourself if you like.

Kali74
reply to post by VoidHawk

 

I agree with you about carbon taxes and I like the solutions you propose. I have to say though that just because a solution is unfavorable that doesn't make the problem fictitious.

It doesn't make it the truth either!
There is real evidence now that we've been lied to concerning GW/CC. If it's real why do they need to lie?
The fact is it's completely unproven! It's a THEORY, and thats all it is, but there's money to be made, and global laws to control people can be put in place if they can pull it off.

The ice is thickening as we type! and the temps have been cooling for many years now, yet they continue spouting this THEORY, a theory created by the same people who told us back in the 60's that there was a serious risk we were heading into another ice age!

reply to post by Kali74


You made a claim and contradicted it all within two sentences. That is impressive.