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College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences (CFOS)
The College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences educates and inspires the next generation of world-class aquatic ecosystem scientists. -
Office of the Provost
The University of Alaska Fairbanks Provost is responsible for providing overall leadership, coordination and direction to UAF research and scholarly activities and graduate studies. -
School of Natural Resources and Agricultural Sciences (SNRAS)
As the primary land-grant component of the university, SNRAS administers a variety of programs and engages in cooperative efforts with federal, state, and borough governments and agencies. -
UAF Graduate School
University of Alaska Fairbanks Graduate School -
Undergraduate Research and Scholarly Activity
At the University of Alaska Fairbanks, the Office of Undergraduate Research and Scholarly Activity (URSA) supports, develops and institutionalizes UAF's diverse and robust programs of undergraduate research and creative ...
Recent Submissions
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Russian use of smart power to achieve Northern Sea Route objectivesThis dissertation examines Russia's use of smart power in pursuing its strategic objectives for the Northern Sea Route (NSR) in the Arctic. Through three interconnected articles, it analyzes how Russia combines soft and hard power approaches to assert control over the NSR and legitimize its claims. The first article challenges Russia's legal justification for NSR control by presenting new data on sea ice conditions and navigational risks. The second article explores how Russia's military posture in the Arctic has evolved in response to geopolitical shifts, particularly NATO expansion. The third article investigates Russia's strategic communication efforts to shape international perceptions of the NSR. Drawing on smart power theory, the dissertation demonstrates how Russia integrates legal, military, and informational tactics to advance its interests. It argues that Russia's smart power strategy aims to establish customary law status for its NSR policies, secure a maritime defensive buffer, and maintain regional dominance. The research contributes to broader understandings of smart power dynamics in international relations, offering insights for policymakers and scholars on the interplay of hard and soft power in achieving geopolitical objectives. By examining Russia's multifaceted approach to the NSR, this dissertation reveals the complex strategies employed by states in navigating the changing global landscape and evolving nature of power in the 21st century.
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Inverse problems for shallow water equations and applications to tsunami modellingThe problem of tsunami run-up has been extensively studied in the framework of the shallow water equations. Typically one assumes that the initial water displacement and the initial velocity are known, and then the run-up is computed using the Carrier-Greenspan transformation. The inverse problem consists of recovering the initial displacement and/or velocity from the shoreline oscillations. It has been previously demonstrated that the initial displacement can be recovered from shoreline oscillations under the assumption of zero initial velocity for the sloping plane beach. We show that this result can be generalised to arbitrary power-shaped bathymetries. Moreover, we show that for non-breaking waves, the contributions of velocity and displacement can be separated at the shoreline. This separation allows for the recovery of both the initial displacement and velocity from the shoreline oscillations.
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Stable isotope analyses of eye lenses and stomach-content analysis reveal ontogenetic variation in arctic whitefish trophic dynamicsDetermining the ontogenetic trophic ecology of sympatric, morphologically similar fishes is critical for increasing our understanding of life history. We combined bulk and amino acid compound-specific stable isotope analysis of eye lenses with stomach-content analysis to examine ontogenetic trophic dynamics of four amphidromous whitefishes (Arctic Cisco Coregonus autumnalis, Least Cisco C. sardinella, Broad Whitefish C. nasus, Humpback Whitefish C. pidschian) from the central Beaufort Sea, Alaska. Compound-specific stable nitrogen isotope results showed slight increases in trophic position across ontogeny for each species and indicated the feasibility of this method for comparing the trophic ontogenetic development of closely related, mobile predator species. Bulk δ15N and δ13C ontogenetic timelines were reflective of an amphidromous geographic life-history strategy, where foraging occurs primarily in freshwater habitats early in life and nearshore marine habitats at larger sizes. Stomach-content analysis revealed that diet was dominated by a single prey item (amphipods) in all four species, but that short-term diets differed for five of six pairwise species interactions (only Arctic and Least Cisco had diet compositions that overlapped). This was the first study to compare trophic ontogenies of multiple fish species through eye lens compound-specific stable nitrogen isotope analysis. Trophic dynamics were similar among whitefishes from the central Beaufort Sea, highlighting the vulnerability of this ecologically and culturally important clade.
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Beaver, Alaska: The story of a multi-ethnic communityThis work addresses itself to the role that ethno-historical research can play in understanding the present day life of Indians and Eskimos living in a multi-ethnic community in the interior of Alaska. To do this, an attempt has been made to write and analyze the history of the community in a manner that reflects the separate tribal, ethnic, and individual differences of the various people who settled there. Documentation of cultural patterning by different groups enables the researcher to understand the dynamics of cultural persistence and change throughout time in land use, social relations, economic pursuits, attitudes and values. This research does not presuppose that individuals and groups who are influenced by outside intrusions will necessarily respond by changing their ways of life. Instead, the problem has been to investigate the nature of the outside influences and the manner in which these intrusions are perceived by members of the community and the nature of the responses made to them. Written documentation is employed to set an order to the events, but my main reliance is on personal recollections of past events to discern the feelings and associations that people today hold for those forces that have affected their lives in the past and that are now operating
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Testing nuclear power in Alaska: the reactor at Fort GreelySince WWII Alaska not only has been a major player in the defensive strategy of the United States, but it also has been considered an important military testing ground. This paper will advance the thesis that military operations are often detrimental and, indeed, hazardous to the resident population. Specifically, the SM-1A, a nuclear reactor the Army built at Fort Greely, Alaska in 1962, will be examined with emphasis on the fact that it was used to test nuclear energy production. Additionally, because of the discharge of low level radioactive waste into Jarvis Creek, which runs through Delta, there may be an abnormally high incidence of cancer within the nearby community. Furthermore, this is not an isolated case and other examples of nuclear tests will be presented as evidence.
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Data Submission Package for Manuscript 'Moving beyond the physical impervious surface impact and urban habitat fragmentation of Alaska: Quantitative Human Footprint Inference from the first large Scale 30m high-resolution Landscape Metrics Big Data Quantification in R and the Cloud'_2With increased globalization, man-made climate change, and urbanization, the landscape – embedded within the Anthropocene - becomes increasingly fragmented. With habitats transitioning and getting lost, globally relevant regions considered ‘pristine', such as Alaska, are no exception. Alaska holds 60% of the U.S. National Park system’s area and is of national and international importance, considering the U.S. is one of the wealthiest nations on earth. These characteristics tie into densities and quantities of human features, e.g., roads, houses, mines, wind parks, agriculture, trails, etc., that can be summarized as ‘impervious surfaces.’ Those are physical impacts and actively affecting urban-driven landscape fragmentation. Using the remote sensing data of the National Land Cover Database (NLCD; https://www.mrlc.gov/data/nlcd-2016-land-cover-alaska ), here we attempt to create the first quantification of this physical human impact on the Alaskan landscape and its fragmentation. We quantified these impacts using the well-established landscape metrics tool ‘Fragstats’, implemented as the R package “landscapemetrics” in the desktop software and through the interface of a Linux Cloud-computing environment. This workflow allows for the first time to overcome the computational limitations of the conventional Fragstats software within a reasonably quick timeframe. Thereby, we are able to analyze a land area as large as approx. 1,517,733 km2 (state of Alaska) while maintaining a high assessment resolution of 30 meters. Based on this traditional methodology, we found that Alaska has a reported physical human impact of c. 0.067%. But when assessed, we additionally overlaid other features that were not included in the input data to highlight the overall true human impact (e.g., roads, trails, airports, governance boundaries in game management and park units, mines, etc.). We found that using remote sensing (human impact layers), Alaska’s human impact is considerably underestimated to a meaningless estimate (0.067%). The state is more seriously fragmented and affected by humans than commonly assumed. Very few areas are truly untouched and display a high patch density with corresponding low mean patch sizes throughout the study area. Instead, the true human impact is likely close to 100% throughout Alaska for several metrics. With these newly created insights, we provide the first state-wide landscape data and inference that are likely of considerable importance for land management entities in the state of Alaska, and for the U.S. National Park systems overall, especially in the changing climate. Likewise, the methodological framework presented here shows an Open Access workflow and can be used as a reference to be reproduced virtually anywhere else on the planet to assess more realistic large-scale landscape metrics. It can also be used to assess human impacts on the landscape for more sustainable landscape stewardship and mitigation in policy.
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Alaska Earthquake Center Quarterly Technical Report July-September 2024This series of technical quarterly reports from the Alaska Earthquake Center (AEC) includes detailed summaries and updates on Alaska seismicity, the AEC seismic network and stations, fieldwork, our online presence, and lists publications and presentations by AEC staff. Multiple AEC staff members contribute to this report. It is issued within 1-2 months after the completion of each quarter Q1: January-March, Q2: April-June, Q3: July-September, and Q4: October-December. The first report was published for January-March, 2021.
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Ice Box, vol. 20 (2024)University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2024
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Ice Box, vol. 19 (2023)University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2023
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Ice Box, vol. 18 (2022)University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2022
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Ice Box, vol. 17 (2021)University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2021
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Ice Box, vol. 16 (2020)University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2020
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Ice Box, vol. 15 (2019)University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2019
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Data Submission Package for Manuscript 'Moving beyond the physical impervious surface impact and urban habitat fragmentation of Alaska: Quantitative Human Footprint Inference from the first large Scale 30m high-resolution Landscape Metrics Big Data Quantification in R and the Cloud' - MS2With increased globalization, man-made climate change, and urbanization, the landscape – embedded within the Anthropocene - becomes increasingly fragmented. With habitats transitioning and getting lost, globally relevant regions considered ‘pristine', such as Alaska, are no exception. Alaska holds 60% of the U.S. National Park system’s area and is of national and international importance, considering the U.S. is one of the wealthiest nations on earth. These characteristics tie into densities and quantities of human features, e.g., roads, houses, mines, wind parks, agriculture, trails, etc., that can be summarized as ‘impervious surfaces.’ Those are physical impacts and actively affecting urban-driven landscape fragmentation. Using the remote sensing data of the National Land Cover Database (NLCD; https://www.mrlc.gov/data/nlcd-2016-land-cover-alaska ), here we attempt to create the first quantification of this physical human impact on the Alaskan landscape and its fragmentation. We quantified these impacts using the well-established landscape metrics tool ‘Fragstats’, implemented as the R package “landscapemetrics” in the desktop software and through the interface of a Linux Cloud-computing environment. This workflow allows for the first time to overcome the computational limitations of the conventional Fragstats software within a reasonably quick timeframe. Thereby, we are able to analyze a land area as large as approx. 1,517,733 km2 (state of Alaska) while maintaining a high assessment resolution of 30 meters. Based on this traditional methodology, we found that Alaska has a reported physical human impact of c. 0.067%. But when assessed, we additionally overlaid other features that were not included in the input data to highlight the overall true human impact (e.g., roads, trails, airports, governance boundaries in game management and park units, mines, etc.). We found that using remote sensing (human impact layers), Alaska’s human impact is considerably underestimated to a meaningless estimate (0.067%). The state is more seriously fragmented and affected by humans than commonly assumed. Very few areas are truly untouched and display a high patch density with corresponding low mean patch sizes throughout the study area. Instead, the true human impact is likely close to 100% throughout Alaska for several metrics. With these newly created insights, we provide the first state-wide landscape data and inference that are likely of considerable importance for land management entities in the state of Alaska, and for the U.S. National Park systems overall, especially in the changing climate. Likewise, the methodological framework presented here shows an Open Access workflow and can be used as a reference to be reproduced virtually anywhere else on the planet to assess more realistic large-scale landscape metrics. It can also be used to assess human impacts on the landscape for more sustainable landscape stewardship and mitigation in policy.
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Dynamo action in the ionosphere and motions of the magnetospheric plasmaThis thesis presents a study of the dynamic interaction which takes place between the magnetospheric plasma and the underlying neutral atmosphere; it is hoped thus to gain a better understanding of the effects of this interaction upon the steady state configuration of the magnetosphere. The neutral portion of the atmosphere (the neutrosphere) and the overlying ionized regions (the upper atmosphere and magnetosphere) may be regarded as two distinct dynamic domains that interact in a region of transition occurring between 100 and 150 km over the earth. The neutrosphere because of its greater mass will dominate the motion, and the magnetospheric plasma can be expected to undergo motions related to those of the upper neutrosphere and transition region. However, the geomagnetic field restricts the motion of the magnetospheric plasma to a particular class, allowing one to consider the magnetospheric motion to be constrained. Motions in the transition region of the class not permitted the magnetospheric plasma will give rise to forces against the constraint. The reaction of the constraint on the atmosphere of the transition region takes the form of a Lorentz force J x B where J is the current responsible for the well known solar quiet day daily magnetic variation (Sq). The explanation for the production of this current in the transition region has traditionally been presented in terms of a dynamo-like electromotive force generated by motions of the conducting atmosphere through the magnetic field, whence the transition region is aptly named the dynamo region. The Lorentz force represented by this current constitutes a significant term in the equation of motion for the dynamo region. Another important term arises from eddy viscous stresses immediately below the dynamo region. The equation of motion for the dynamo region must thus include such forces as well as the pressure gradient and Coriolis terms. However, our almost total ignorance of the eddy viscous stress field at the lower surface of the dynamo layer at present precludes our deducing the entire dynamo layer winds from the observed Sq magnetic variation. The kinematics of the dynamo layer are discussed and the motion or the dynamo layer is divided into a symmetric and an antisymmetric part. The term symmetric is here used to describe winds in the northern and southern hemisphere that are the mirror images of each other with respect to the equatorial plane. It is demonstrated that the symmetric component gives rise to electrostatic fields transverse to the field lines, but to no currents along the field lines, while the antisymmetric case produces the converse effects. The symmetric and antisymmetric winds are further divided into components according to the horizontal electromotive force they produce. (a) Symmetric Wind. In the case of the symmetric wind, only the portion of the wind producing the solenoidal component of the horizontal dynamo electromotive force is effective in producing ionospheric currents. It is demonstrated that only this current producing wind system acts against the constraints imposed by the geomagnetic field on magnetospheric motions. The motion of the magnetospheric plasma driven by each such wind system is discussed. The earlier treatments of the dynamo theory consider the dynamo region to be a single layer in which the wind system and the electric conductivity are assumed to be uniform in height. A new, more general derivation of the layer's dynamo action is given in which no restrictions are placed upon the vertical distributions. An effective wind is defined which permits the use of the earlier equations relating the current function, the electrostatic field, and the scalar field describing the current producing part of the effective wind. The equation relating the electrostatic field and the current function is essentially that employed by Maeda (1956), allowing his solution for the portion of the electrostatic field associated with the current producing wind to remain unaffected by the stratification of the wind system. Mathematical techniques for solving the dynamo equations for the electrostatic field are developed. These allow for a quite general conductivity distribution over the globe, only requiring that it be expressible in surface harmonics. The effect of undetected zonal currents upon the solution for the electrostatic field is discussed. It is suggested that a considerable diurnal component of electrostatic field and other components as well may be hidden from us by our inability to detect the prevailing magnetic perturbations produced by zonal currents. The electrostatic field associated with the non-current producing components of the symmetric wind is likewise hidden from us. (b) Antisymmetric Wind. The equations for the current driven by the antisymmetric component of wind are derived, and some of the effects of such currents are discussed. It is found that the conduction of current along the field lines from one hemisphere to the other is associated with an interhemispheric stress between geomagnetically conjugate points of order 3 x 10⁻⁷ newtons/meter². In addition it is found that an antisymmetric layer current density of 5 amperes/km into the polar cap region (across the 75° latitude circle) might give rise to a displacement of about 150 km in the relative position of the conjugate points defined by field lines of the magnetospheric tail. It is suggested that the dynamo action in the 100 to 150 km height plays a role in determining the manner in which the magnetosphere divides itself into the corotating region and the magnetospheric tail.
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Improved contrail forecasting techniques for the subarctic setting of Fairbanks, AlaskaJet contrails can be frequently observed in the subarctic setting of Fairbanks, Alaska, much like in the contiguous United States. Since March of 2000, continuous digital imagery of the sky was obtained, supported by FAA flight data and radiosonde ascents at the Fairbanks International Airport. There were a total of 2504 over-flights (March 2000-July 2002) at Fairbanks, but for a great number of these, contrail observations were not possible due to clouds and/or darkness. For 590 cases, the formation of contrails could be confirmed; their life span varied widely from a few seconds to several hours. In general, cold temperatures and high relative humidity at flight level favored the formation of contrails. These conditions are frequently found in the upper troposphere close to the tropopause. Using our substantial database, different existing algorithms were tested and, in part, improved in order to predict contrail formation and lifetime. The best results were obtained with an algorithm described by Schumann (1996) and an aircraft specific contrail factor of 0.036 g/kgK. For contrails within 4 hours of the radiosonde ascents, a combined hit rate for correctly forecasting the occurrence and non-occurrence of contrails of 92% was obtained.
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Maritime Guidance for Distant and Local Source Tsunami Events: Chenega Bay, AlaskaThese documents provide response guidance for Chenega Bay in the event of tsunamis for small vessels such as recreational sailing and motor vessels, and commercial fishing vessels. The developed documents follow the guidance developed by the National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program (NTHMP) and are based on anticipated effects of a maximum-considered distant and locally generated tsunami event.
