Alaska Senator Mark Begich (Dem.) hosted a roundtable yesterday at the University of Alaska Anchorage to consider building a deepwater port in Alaska. According to a press release from Senator Begich’s office, among the dozen participants were Rear Admiral Tom Ostebo, Commander of the Seventeenth Coast Guard District (covering Alaska), Colonel Reinhard Koenig, Commander of […]
The Congressional Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation, part of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, held a hearing on Thursday, December 1 on U.S. Coast Guard operations in the Arctic. The chief topic of concern was icebreakers. As I reported back in February, the U.S. will be without heavy icebreakers for at least two […]
An exceptional wildfire near Bettles, Alaska in 2007 released as much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as the entire Arctic tundra absorbs in a year according to a new report in the journal Nature. The Anaktuvuk River fire lasted for more than three months and burned across more than 1,000 sq km in central Alaska. […]