The Struggle Between Alaska And Global Warming

Alaska is a state where they can have two extremities either extremely dry and cold or extremely moist and hot. Over the years Alaska’s climate has been doing anything but the norm. Wildfires during the summer have been an issue in Alaska; just last year hundreds of fires had burned over 5 million acres of the state’s land. It doesn’t necessarily get a lot of news attention because it’s a problem far away from civilization, but the smoke travels far and it plays a part in the global warming issue because of the amount of carbon it pumps into the atmosphere.
Glaciers are melting at a rapid pace. From 1950-2010 over eight percent of Alaska’s glaciers have melted (Zielinski, 2015 ) and it is flowing into the ocean so not only is Alaska losing
some of its beauty but it is also contributing to the forever rising sea-level. Permafrost is not so permanent because of the record high temps and so people in rural areas are losing some of their underground food storage and when permafrost is thawed it releases some greenhouse gases including methane which is not good at all. The Coastline Is Eroding causing the beach line to lose more than 60 feet of land to the water per year, with the permafrost thawing causing the soil to loosen up, making it easy for the land to be lost at sea. Villages are relocating because are of coastal erosion Shishmaref, Kivalina, and Newtok have all made plans to relocate their villages before they get swallowed up along with 160 villages at risk. With all this going on the food sources are running short too. The multiplying flies are making our caribou sick and infected, this way of life has sustained people of Alaska for hundreds of years and it’s disappearing.