ARCTIC: Disappearing glaciers & more – 13th Aug 2024

Góðan daginn from Keswick Village! This is the Rorshok Arctic Update from the 13th of August twenty twenty-four. A quick summary of what’s going down North of the Arctic Circle!

Juneau, Alaska's capital, faced a devastating event on Monday the 5th of August, when the Mendenhall Glacier dam burst, flooding the city of 30,000 people. Unlike a typical dam, the Mendenhall Glacier has protected the city from upland snowmelt for over a century. However, due to climate change, the glacier has been shrinking annually since twenty eleven, leading to worsening floods.

This year's flooding was the worst on record, with waters reaching up to sixteen feet, about five meters, damaging hundreds of homes, businesses, and vehicles. Governor Mike Dunleavy declared a natural disaster to provide relief funding, and by Wednesday the 7th of August, the National Weather Service reported that water levels had receded, allowing residents to begin recovery efforts from an event that shows no signs of improving.

As Juneau flooded, the rest of Alaska burned. The National Weather Service reported on Tuesday the 6th that Alaska’s North Slope has seen all-time record temperatures this week, hitting eighty-nine degrees Fahrenheit, thirty-one Celsius. That wasn’t the only heat record being broken, as Environment Canada reported on Wednesday the 7th that the far northern town of Inuvik broke records when it recorded ninety-five degrees Fahrenheit, thirty-five Celsius. These unprecedented heatwaves are causing wildfires, with the Canadian Wildland Fire Information System listing on Sunday the 11th that the majority of Canada’s NorthWest Territory is currently at extreme risk of danger from wildfire.

Canada’s wildfire situation changes daily. You can find a link to the latest information in the show notes.

Temperature records are being broken in the European Arctic too. On Sunday the 11th, in Norway’s territory of Svalbard, the temperature was recorded at over twenty degrees Celsius, almost seventy Fahrenheit. While July temperatures in Svalbard have been regularly breaching twenty degrees since twenty twenty, normally August brings a cooling and approach of winter. This year though, temperatures haven’t fallen and Svalbard has recorded an August temperature of over twenty degrees for the first time in recorded history.

With sweltering heat in the Arctic, ice melting is inevitable. SVT, Sweden's news agency, reported on Monday the 5th of August that scientists at the Tarfala research station in northern Sweden are recording unprecedented melting of the country's glaciers.

glaciers could vanish by: 2100

Arctic weather clearly affects the lives of everyone living there, so having accurate weather forecasting could be a lifesaving tool. The World Meteorological Organization announced on Wednesday the 7th that it is launching a new project to improve weather forecasts in the Arctic and Antarctic to enhance security and safety for those who live and travel in the polar regions. Over the next four years, the project will gather expertise from around the world to focus research on developing climate models that can be used and understood by people living in the Arctic.

A groundbreaking research milestone has been reached in the Norwegian Arctic. On Wednesday the 7th of August, the Norwegian Polar Institute announced that they successfully obtained year-round measurements from the Amundsen Basin, the deepest point of the Arctic, which includes the North Pole.

Two years ago, researchers deployed measuring devices in this challenging area, overcoming severe weather and thick sea ice that had previously hindered such efforts. The instruments were retrieved this year, capturing an unprecedented amount of data. While it will take time to analyze, the Institute plans to publicly release the findings, which are expected to lead to numerous groundbreaking discoveries that are eagerly anticipated by scientists worldwide. Wanna know more? Check out the Ocean Update with the link in the show notes!

Norway's northern ocean has been the center of a mysterious situation this week. High North News, a news agency, reported on Thursday the 8th of August that a suspicious natural gas ship has been operating in the region. The ship had been transmitting a fake position signal since late July, indicating it was stationary in international waters.

However, satellite imagery revealed that the vessel was actually visiting Russian gas platforms during this time. On August 7th, the ship abruptly ceased its fake signal and transmitted a new location from hundreds of miles away in Norwegian waters. Sending false signals violates international maritime laws, and High North News suspects that the vessel is part of Russia's dark fleet, a group of illegal vessels operating outside the law to distribute Russian resources globally.

Speaking of Russia, the country has huge ambitions for developing its Arctic region. At a meeting between Andrey Chibis, the Governor of the Murmansk Region, and Vladimir Putin, the Russian President, on Tuesday the 6th, Chibis showed his plans for developing Murmansk into an economic powerhouse. His prediction is that Murmansk will require about 6.5 billion US dollars from the Russian state over the next ten years to achieve its goals. Chibis hopes that by the time Putin reveals his next national budget, he will allocate the significant funding required to build a new Russian Arctic.

Making money from the Arctic is big business for all the northern nations. A new study carried out by Alaska-based McKinley Research Group published on Thursday the 8th found that mining contributed over 2.5 billion US dollars to Alaska's economy during twenty twenty-three. This amount includes over a billion dollars in wages given to Alaskan employees and over 200 million dollars paid to Alaska Native corporations. The mining industry has been growing consistently for decades in Alaska, and with the global push for rare minerals to replace fossil fuels, the future for the industry is looking very valuable.

Speaking of native prosperity, Friday the 9th is the International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples. The UN wrote that the day highlights the diversity and culture of indigenous peoples, and increases efforts against discrimination and exclusion. To celebrate this day, the Inuit Circumpolar Council has published a new book that tells the political history of Arctic Indigenous Peoples, seen from their perspectives. It is titled Empowering Arctic Indigenous Peoples – Celebrating 50 Years of Indigenous Diplomacy. The Council hopes to ensure that Indigenous political stories are not written by the powerful countries that have dominated their communities in the past.

Indigenous Greenlanders have had plenty to cheer this week with the unusual Greenlandic football season taking place from the 3rd to the 10th of August. The league was held in the remote town of Qeqertarsuaq on Disko Island. Seven teams from around Greenland competed and B-67 Nuuk, the most successful team in league history, won their fifteenth league title. This competition holds the record for the shortest football league in the world, and Greenland’s football fans will need to wait eleven months before they can cheer on their local teams again.

In the same region where the football tournament is taking place, researchers from the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources have been studying the elusive bowhead whales. On Friday the 9th of August, they published research that sheds light on the mysterious communication methods of these whales.

Although bowhead whales are known to maintain close relationships, they are rarely seen swimming together. The researchers discovered that pairs of bowheads, even when separated by hundreds of kilometers, synchronize their deep-sea dives. This coordination allows them to stay connected over vast distances, a remarkable form of communication that predates human technological advancements by millennia.

Finally, in Greenland’s neighbor, Iceland, the town of Grindavik has endured a relentless barrage of thousands of earthquakes and multiple volcanic eruptions over the past nine months, but there is now a glimmer of hope. On Friday the 9th of August, the Grindavik committee, the town's governing body, unveiled a new action plan to begin repairing the extensive damage caused by these natural disasters. The initial phase of the repairs will cost over three million US dollars and will focus on road restoration, elevating sea defenses, and installing safety fences. While it will take time to restore the town to a habitable state, this marks a first step toward stability.

Aaand that’s it for this week! Thank you for joining us!

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