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Nearshore bathymetry is a vital link that joins offshore water depths to coastal topography. Seamless water depth information is a critical input parameter for reliable storm surge models, enables the calculation of sediment budgets and is necessary baseline data for a range of coastal management decisions. Funding from the Western Alaska LCC resulted in the purchase of field equipment capable of shallow water measurements in rural settings, allowing collection of nearshore bathymetry around western Alaska communities. The resulting vector data shape files of nearshore bathymetry for Gambell, Savoonga, Golovin, Wales, Shismaref, and Hooper Bay are available by following the link below.
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The Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta of Alaska is a globally important region for numerousavian species including millions of migrating and nesting waterbirds. Climate change effectssuch as sea level rise and increased storm frequency and intensity have the potential to impactwaterbird populations and breeding habitat. In order to determine the potential impacts of theseclimate-mediated changes, we investigated both short-term and long-term impacts of stormsurges to geese and eider species that commonly breed on the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta. Todetermine short-term impacts, we compared nest densities of geese and eiders in relation to themagnitude of storms that occurred in the prior fall from 2000–2013. Additionally, we modeledgeese...
Categories: Data; Types: Map Service, OGC WFS Layer, OGC WMS Layer, OGC WMS Service; Tags: BIRDS, BIRDS, CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACT ASSESSMENT MODELS, CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACT ASSESSMENT MODELS, DELTAS, All tags...
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This project evaluated the potential impacts of storm surges and relative sea level rise on nesting geese and eider species that commonly breed on the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta (Y-K Delta). Habitat suitability maps for breeding waterbirds were developed to identify current waterbird breeding habitat and distributions. Short-term climate change impacts were assessed by comparing nest densities in relation to magnitude of storms that occurred in the prior fall from 2000-2013. Additionally, nest densities were modeled using random forests in relation to the time-integrated flood index (e.g., a storm specific measure accounting for both water depth and duration of flooding) for four modeled storms (2005, 2006, 2009, and...
Categories: Data; Types: Map Service, OGC WFS Layer, OGC WMS Layer, OGC WMS Service; Tags: BIRDS, BIRDS, CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACT ASSESSMENT MODELS, CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACT ASSESSMENT MODELS, DELTAS, All tags...
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The Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta of Alaska is a globally important region for numerous avian species including millions of migrating and nesting waterbirds. Climate change effects such as sea level rise and increased storm frequency and intensity have the potential to impact waterbird populations and breeding habitat. In order to determine the potential impacts of these climate-mediated changes, we investigated both short-term and long-term impacts of storm surges to geese and eider species that commonly breed on the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta.To do this, we used 29 years of ground-based surveys conducted as part of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s long-term waterbird monitoring program along with flood indices modeled...
Categories: Data; Types: Map Service, OGC WFS Layer, OGC WMS Layer, OGC WMS Service; Tags: BIRDS, BIRDS, CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACT ASSESSMENT MODELS, CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACT ASSESSMENT MODELS, DELTAS, All tags...
The western coastline of Alaska spans over 10,000 km of diverse topography ranging from low lying tundra in the north to sharp volcanic relief in the south. Included in this range are areas highly susceptible to powerful storms which can cause coastal flooding, erosion and have many other negative effects on the environment and commercial efforts in the region. In order to better understand the multi-scale and interactive physics of the deep ocean,continental shelf, near shore, and coast, a large unstructured domain hydrodynamic model is being developed using the finite element, free surface circulation code ADCIRC.This model is a high resolution, accurate, and robust computational model of Alaska’s coastal environment...
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Understanding the causes of relative sea level rise requires knowledge of changes to both land (uplift and subsidence) and sea level. However, measurements of coastal uplift or subsidence are almost completely lacking in western Alaska. This project provided precise measurements of prioritized benchmarks across the Western Alaska geography, improving the network of published tidal benchmark elevations, allowing for tidal datum conversion in more places, and providing a necessary component for improved inundation studies in coastal communities and low-lying areas. The project’s map of vertical velocities (uplift/subsidence) of western Alaska (see ‘Final Project Report’ & ‘Vertical Velocity Map’, below) will be combined...
Understanding the causes of relative sea level rise requires knowledge of changes to both land (uplift and subsidence) and sea level. However, measurements of coastal uplift or subsidence are almost completely lacking in western Alaska. This project provided precise measurements of prioritized benchmarks across the Western Alaska geography, improving the network of published tidal benchmark elevations, allowing for tidal datum conversion in more places, and providing a necessary component for improved inundation studies in coastal communities and low-lying areas. The project’s map of vertical velocities (uplift/subsidence) of western Alaska (see ‘Final Project Report’ & ‘Vertical Velocity Map’, below) will be combined...
The compilation of an accurate and contemporary digital shoreline for Alaska is an important step in understanding coastal processes and measuring changes in coastal storm characteristics. Consistent with efforts by the United States National Park Service (NPS) at Bering Land Bridge National Preserve (BELA) and Cape Krusenstern National Monument, high quality, defensible digital shoreline datasets are under development for select coastal parks in the State of Alaska. Near BELA, for the area from Cape Prince of Wales to Cape Espenberg, extended revised shoreline coverage can be produced using true color coastal shoreline imagery to update the boundary demarking the mean high water (MHW) shoreline, which represents...
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The primary purpose of this project is to acquire long-term data series ontemperature of selected lakes to support management of nursery habitat of lakerearingjuvenile sockeye salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka) in relation to climatechange. We adopted protocol developed by the National Park Service (NPS) toestablish moored all-season vertical temperature monitoring arrays in eight lakesof Kodiak, Togiak, and Alaska Peninsula/Becharof National Wildlife Refuges(NWR) in summer and fall 2011. We recorded lake temperature at a resolution of0.02°C on an hourly basis at various depth strata between lake surfaces and lakebottoms. Monitoring sites were visited annually or biannially to extract data andto service monitoring equipment....
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Hydrologic processes greatly influence Alaska’s physical and biological resources and the human communities that depend upon them. These processes will also be greatly impacted by expected changes in climate, including warming temperatures and changing seasonal precipitation patterns and amounts. However, current understanding of those impacts is limited. Improving that understanding is a first step toward assessing how the likely changes in hydrology will impact other physical and biological processes. The Western Alaska LCC and the Alaska Climate Science Center, with support from other LCCs, hosted a workshop of 28 hydrologists, researchers, fisheries biologists, local experts and managers for a workshop structured...
Water temperature in lakes and lagoons plays a key role in hydrology, water quality, and habitat suitability for aquatic organisms. The purpose of this project is to provide land and resource managers with information related to the past, present, and future temperature trends in lake surface waters in western Alaska. Through a combination of remote sensing, in situ data collection, model development, we will analyze similarities and differences related to spatial and temporal patterns of lake surface temperatures in western Alaska from 1985 to 2100. ​
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A high spatial resolution storm surge model was developed for the YK Delta area to assess biological impacts of storm surges under current and future climates. Storm surges are expected to be more frequent and more severe in the YK Delta area due to climate change and sea level rise. The biological impacts in the YK Delta due to the changed storm surges could be extreme.The model was assessed with respect to measured water level data at the coast and, where available, spatial extent of inundation, for 6 storms from the period 1992 to 2011. In total, inundation projections from 9 historical storms (5 from the assessment + 4 others) were developed. For each storm, an spatial inundation index (time-integral of water...
Categories: Data; Types: Map Service, OGC WFS Layer, OGC WMS Layer, OGC WMS Service; Tags: ARCHAEOLOGICAL AREAS, ARCHAEOLOGICAL AREAS, Academics & scientific researchers, COASTAL AREAS, COASTAL AREAS, All tags...
Research on coastal change in Western Alaska has increased rapidly in recent years, making it challenging to track existing projects, understand their cumulative insights, gauge remaining research gaps, and prioritize future research. This project identified existing coastal change projects in Western Alaska that were happening in 2014, scheduled for 2015 or occured in 2012-2014. The report (below) provides a synthesis of information about each project category, and an associated online database (see ACCAP project page link below) describes individual projects and information on how to contact the project leader. These products document the project landscape for communities facing change, decision-makers navigating...
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The environment is rapidly changing and global warming brings impacts to all forms of life. This report is about the effects of a changing climate on the human environment and changes to communities and peoples’ lives. The best measures of change are the observations of people who live and work here, travel the trails, watch the weather, and harvest food from the land and sea. By listening, we learn the nature of the changes that are occurring, and gain insight into the causes and specific implications to people and the adaptations that are being developed and used every day. People of the Alaska are excellent observers of environmental change because of their local knowledge and expertise about the weather, wildlife,...
Categories: Data; Types: Map Service, OGC WFS Layer, OGC WMS Layer, OGC WMS Service; Tags: CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACT ASSESSMENT MODELS, CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACT ASSESSMENT MODELS, EROSION, EROSION, Interested public, All tags...
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The environment is rapidly changing and global warming brings impacts to all forms of life. This report is about the effects of a changing climate on the human environment and changes to communities and peoples’ lives. The best measures of change are the observations of people who live and work here, travel the trails, watch the weather, and harvest food from the land and sea. By listening, we learn the nature of the changes that are occurring, and gain insight into the causes and specific implications to people and the adaptations that are being developed and used every day. People of the Bering Strait are excellent observers of environmental change because of their local knowledge and expertise about the weather,...
Categories: Data; Types: Map Service, OGC WFS Layer, OGC WMS Layer, OGC WMS Service; Tags: CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACT ASSESSMENT MODELS, CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACT ASSESSMENT MODELS, EROSION, EROSION, Interested public, All tags...
The western coastline of Alaska is highly susceptible to coastal storms, which can cause coastal erosion, flooding, and have other pernicious effects to the environment and commercial efforts. The reduction in ice coverage due to climate change could potentially increase the frequency and degree of coastal flooding and erosion. Further, estuaries and delta systems act as conduits for storm surges, so when there is less nearshore ice coverage, these systems could introduce storm surge into terrestrial environments unaccustomed to saline intrusion, flooding, or other alien biogeochemical factors.This project quantified the effect of reduced nearshore ice coverage on coastal flooding. The project developed a large...
Categories: Collection, Data; Tags: Academics & scientific researchers, COASTAL AREAS, COASTAL AREAS, COASTAL PROCESSES, COASTAL PROCESSES, All tags...
Bering Sea storms introduce various environmental conditions that adversely affect human activity and infrastructure in the coastal zone and the ecosystems they depend upon. Storm impacts include interactions with sea ice in all potential states: large floes, shore-fast ice, and incipient sea-ice in frazil or slush state. In particular, sea ice can act to enhance or mitigate the impacts of adverse marine state, even as the event is occurring. Such occurrences should be part of a forecasting regimen, however scientific work has not been conducted on this phenomena, with the result that a physical model describing the formation of slush ice berms does not exist. To arrive at such a model requires visits to and input...
An integrated high resolution tide and storm surge model has been developedfor all of coastal Alaska. The model uses the ADCIRC basin-to-channelscale unstructured grid circulation code. Tidal forcing from global tidal modelsand meteorological forcing from the Climate Forecast System Reanalysisare used. The model’s tidal solution has been validated at 121 shelf andnearshore stations. The model’s skill has been investigated for summer, falland winter storms. Sea ice has been incorporated through a parameterizedwind drag coefficient which modifies the air-sea drag under ice coverage.Three large storms with distinctly different ice coverages were chosen to exhibitthe effect of sea ice on the resulting storm surge. The...
Categories: Data, Publication; Types: Citation; Tags: Academics & scientific researchers, COASTAL AREAS, COASTAL AREAS, COASTAL PROCESSES, COASTAL PROCESSES, All tags...
One of the major challenges in understanding changes in coastal processes in western Alaska is the lack of measured ocean data in the region. ​This project leveraged existing human resources, and physical and computational infrastructure to collect and disseminate oceanographic observations in the Bering Sea. From instrument restoration, transport and deployment, through data streaming, recovery and dissemination, this project considered the end to end supports necessary to gather, promote, and serve oceanographic data along Alaska’s Western coast. Real‐time sea‐state conditions were transmitted via both high and low bandwidth sites, directly benefited emergency managers and local communities, particularly in dealing...