- As Alaska's climate changes, its landscape
is being transformed.
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- The Columbia Glacier, big enough to dwarf
the mountains through which it flows, is melting.
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- Warmer weather made the glacier lose
its footing on a ridge in Prince William Sound 16 years ago, and since
then it has retreated eight miles, leaving a litter of floating ice behind
it.
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- Scientists say that since the mid 1970s
glaciers have been melting faster than ever. On average they're losing
15% of their length every decade.
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- The changes indicate a more dramatic
world impact says Gunter Weller of the Geophysical Institute at the University
of Alaska:
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- "We're looking at dramatic changes,
that have implications for the rest of the world.
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- "These changes are unprecedented...the
recession of glaciers, the disappearance of sea ice, the thawing of the
permafrost, they all indicate major impacts."
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- Thawing after 125,000 years
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- The most far reaching effects are taking
place beneath the surface.
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- The permanently frozen ground which covers
most of Alaska is thawing for the first time for 125,000 years. If these
higher temperatures persist, tens of millions of acres of forest will be
turned into swamps.
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- Trees lean drunkenly as the ground beneath
them gives way, and die in the water logged soil.
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- As the vegetation in these drowning forests
rots, the methane and carbon dioxide it gives off could speed climate change
significantly.
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- Where blocks of ice lie buried, holes
several metres deep are opening up in the ground.
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- The telegraph poles linking the widely
scattered human population have to be tethered to stop them falling over.
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- Warmer winters have brought not drought
but heavy snow, which breaks the branches of trees.
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- Warm, dry summers have weakened them
further, and led to an explosion in the population of predatory insects.
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- Wildlife threatened
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- Beetles eat the tissue between the bark
and wood - starving the tree by interrupting the flow of nutrients on which
it depends.
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- Studies of Alaska's wild animals confirm
profound changes in climate.
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- The caribou population is declining.
It's possible that freezing rain is sealing their food out of reach under
a layer of ice.
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- Fires, like one which destroyed this
forest in 1983, also threaten wildlife.
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- After summer drought fires are more intense,
scorching the soil and releasing tonnes of carbon dioxide.
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- Winter has again come late to Alaska
this year.
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- The Nenana River should be frozen by
now. Much of Alaska's frosty earth is now only one or two degrees below
freezing.
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- As it thaws this once changeless icy
wilderness is being steadily destroyed.
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