Cli·mate Change

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Thermokarst

"This process of continuous alteration was applied not only to newspapers, but to books, periodicals, pamphlets, posters, leaflets, films, soundtracks, cartoons, photographs—to every kind of literature or documentation which might conceivably hold any political or ideological significance." - George Orwell - 1984

Wednesday Thoughts

    The past few days has made me sick to my stomach over and over again. It makes me so sad that a person with no interest of the environment, now is the leader of such a large country as USA. It makes me upset when people don't seem to understand the consequences with this man in power, a man who over and over again tweets out nonsense and put gags on agencies that studies and/or supports climate science. Human caused climate change IS TRUE, it's not an alternative fact, IT IS A FACT. There is no debate in it when 97% of the per reviewed articles on climate change states that the change in climate is caused by humans.  There is something fundamentally wrong when tweeting climate facts is called "going rogue" at the same time as choosing alternative facts as the truth is completely ok. 

http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/4/048002

    Do you have any thoughts?

Winter Lights

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Self portrait on one of those cold days in Alaska

The winter! the brightness that blinds you, 
   The white land locked tight as a drum, 
The cold fear that follows and finds you, 
   The silence that bludgeons you dumb. 
The snows that are older than history, 
   The woods where the weird shadows slant; 
The stillness, the moonlight, the mystery, 
   I’ve bade ’em good-by— but I can’t. - Robert Service

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tree arch

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trails on campus

Wednesday Thoughts

    Winters in Alaska are long, cold but absolutely beautiful. It struck me the other day how much I miss seeing that light, the light that comes with the cold. There is a special light of the sky, its sunsets and sunrises and midday glow which you only see when the temperatures drop below -20F. It's out of this world. 

Ptarmigan

light phenomenon

deep forest

reflections

Alaska Range

The cabin in the woods

backyard

Alaska Range and art

Spruce and Birch

Sun

Icefog

    Have you experienced that light and the cold? What do you think?

The Land God Forgot - ANWR

The lonely sunsets flame and die;
The giant valleys gulp the night;
The monster mountains scrape the sky,
Where eager stars are diamond-bright.

Wednesday Thoughts

Arctic Air

This planet belongs to all of us. It’s the only one we’ve got. https://t.co/y7cHx5GW2l https://t.co/wrVHOeloE8

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) December 20, 2016

    Those are the recent good news when it comes to the arctic! You can read more about it here! In recent days we have gotten less good news, like the warmest year in 30 years in Alaska. Earlier in December we read about the lack of sea ice in the arctic sea, and the warm temperatures we have seen there. And we have also read about the effects of the warming on polar bears, or the problem with the overfull polar bear prison in Churchill, Manitoba. 

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It's a Burning Matter

    These news aren't necessarily new new, we know that the arctic are seeing the highest increase in annual average temperature, and on top of that Alaska is one of the regions where this warming has been the most prominent. We know that the drying of the landscape combined with an increase in lightning frequency are increasing the annual area burned in northwestern North America. Burning of forests are natural, especially boreal forests and specifically black spruce. The problem is when these fires happen more frequently, that is, burn the same area within the same time period as it once back in time only burned once. But it's not only the burning itself, after the fire we can see changes in for instance the species composition of the vegetation, regrowth and also the effect on permafrost, and subsequently freshwater chemistry.  

The beauty of the Arctic and Sub-arctic Region

    Have you ever driven through the vast landscape up north? The endless tundra, black spruce and mountains, weaved together in this place that we call earth? It's so beautiful, and seem like very few people have actually seen it, or been spell bound by its beauty. I am not one of those, because this beauty of the nature is what I live for. 

    Do you have a favorite region of the world? I am burning for the Arctic and Sub-arctic, but I know other people are burning for other parts of this world.