University of Alaska Fairbanks researchers link climate change to extreme weather events [Video]

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – A team of University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) researchers have released a report linking the impacts of climate change to the increased frequency of extreme weather and climate events in every corner of Alaska

The report, along with the 2024 Arctic Report Card, is being presented this week in Washington, D.C. by its co-editors, Rick Thoman and Heather McFarland.

Forty scientists and Indigenous experts contributed to the 32-page report, called Alaska’s Changing Environment 2.0.

The report lists examples of extreme weather conditions in Alaska, including former Typhoon Merbok in the Bering Sea, which devastated Western Alaska coastline in September 2022.

“Whether it’s extreme rain causing flooding, causing landslides, whether it’s extreme snowfall, whether it’s long-term permafrost thaw and riverbank erosion,” said Thoman.

The Arctic, Thoman estimates, is warming three to four times as fast as the global average.

“Certainly the changes in the environment, the loss of sea ice, the changing seasonality of sea ice, the warming temperatures, …