This brief models the COVID-19 epidemic in Anchorage Alaska to better understand the impact of the Municipality of Anchorage (MOA) “Hunker Down” order and provide insight into the potential benefit of the State of Alaska (SOA) “Stay at Home” order. The economic benefits of the hunker down order are measured in avoided mortality, based on the EPA value of a statistical life of $7.5 million. The benefits are for the epidemic to date based on confirmed cases and a simulation of an Anchorage epidemic based on epidemiological parameters from the scientific literature. Modeling suggests ~5400 deaths were avoided to date. Using a value of a statistical life of $7.5 million, the hunker down order is estimated to have avoided $40.5 billion in mortality due to COVID-19 to date. The economic costs of the shutdown are estimated based on the expected loss of GDP in Alaska, at roughly $4 billion to date. The long run economic costs are not estimated in this report, and will be heavily influenced by efforts by individuals to avoid infection. The estimates of the economic cost are also an upper bound estimate, as many of the costs may have happened regardless of the hunker down order as individuals avoided public spaces to protect themselves.

A confidential report of findings prepared for the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities

The Kantishna Cluster is an enigmatic and energetic cluster of earthquakes located in central Alaska, just to the northwest of Mt. McKinley/Denali and adjacent to the Denali Fault. The Kantishna Cluster has no visible fault traces, and is often speculated to have a connection to the Denali Fault. The Kantishna Cluster is located at a hub of tectonic activity including Bering Block rotation to the west, bookshelf faulting to the northeast, and rotation of southern Alaska due to Pacific plate convergence to the south. The intention of this study was to broaden the knowledge base about the Kantishna Cluster and use the Mw 7.9 Denali Fault earthquake to find a relationship between the cluster and the Denali Fault Zone. Rate calculations in conjunction with z- and b-value changes show that the Denali Fault earthquake had little influence on the seismicity of the Kantishna Cluster, with the exception being the southern most portion closest to the Denali Fault. The highly variable background rate of seismicity in the Kantishna Cluster makes seeing changes in the seismicity difficult. Stress tensor inversions suggest a change in the stresses in the Kantishna Cluster; however, triangle diagram comparisons show that the pattern of earthquake mechanism types did not change. Coulomb stress change calculations predict small changes that were not observed in the data. Double difference hypocentral relocations show that the cloud of earthquakes collapses down to several distinct features. Seismicity trends resolved from hypocentral relocations made it possible to infer fault planes or planar structures in the region. The newly uncovered structures are utilized in the formation of a model involving two wedges to describe the seismicity in the Kantishna Cluster. The two wedges are being “squeezed” in opposite directions accommodating for compression across the cluster due to Pacific plate convergence.

This dataset consists of an appendix of a GIS map of langur sp information in Nepal. The datasets are locations, presences and absences from a value-added GBIF.org query, transect data by the authors and literature data Details are specified in the book chapter by Ale et al in Regmi and Huettmann 2020. This is the first and best compiled data for this species in Nepal and shows national declines with large conservation management implications.

This compiled dataset consists of a field data from rapid assessment of common birds found in urban areas of Kathmandu and Pokhara, Nepal, Hindu Kush-Himalaya (HKH) region.The dataset consists of 31 bird and animal species from a detection survey of 2 transects and photos in MS Excel sheets. It is overlaid with Open Street GIS map predictors for the study areas, and model predicted with GIS. We used the following 6 layers:waterways, natural places, shop polygons, land use, roads and highways and computed proximities for each in GIS. Methods and details are specified in the book chapter by Huettmann in Regmi and Huettmann 2020. This is the first and best compiled field and GIS data for the study area and is to set a start of such views and investigations towards a better and more fair access to data, as part of a better and more democratic decision-making process. Here an example is presented using avian species and GIS habitat layers.

This dataset consist of an appendix of GIS model predictions of Sarus Cranes (GRus antigone Taxonomic Serial Number TSN: 176181) in Nepal. Details are specified in the book chapter by Karmacharya et al in G.R.Regmi and F. Huettmann 2020. This is the first model for this species and shows conservation management implications for the Terai landscape between Nepal and India.

The loss of the floating ice tongue on Jakobshavn Isbræ, Greenland, in the early 2000s has been concurrent with a pattern of thinning, retreat and acceleration leading to enhanced contribution to global sea level. These changes on decadal timescales have been well documented. Here we identify how the glacier responds to forcings on shorter timescales, such as from variations in surface melt, the drainage of supraglacial lakes and seasonal fluctuations in terminus position. Ice motion and surface melt were monitored intermittently from 2006 to 2008. Dual-frequency GPS were deployed 20–50 km upstream of the terminus along the glacier center line. Gaps in surface melt measurements were filled using a temperature-index model of ablation driven by surface air temperatures recorded during the same time period. Our results corroborate the premise that the primary factors controlling speeds on Jakobshavn Isbræ are terminus position and geometry. We also observe that surface speeds demonstrate a complex relationship with meltwater input: on diurnal timescales, velocities closely match changes in water input; however, on seasonal timescales a longer, more intense melt season was observed to effectively reduce the overall ice flow of the glacier for the whole year.

We use time-lapse photography, MODIS satellite imagery, ocean wave measurements and regional broadband seismic data to demonstrate that icebergs that calve from Jakobshavn Isbræ, Greenland, can generate ocean waves that are detectable over 150 km from their source. The waves, which are recorded seismically, have distinct spectral peaks, are not dispersive and persist for several hours. On the basis of these observations, we suggest that calving events at Jakobshavn Isbræ can stimulate seiches, or basin eigenmodes, in both Ilulissat Icefjord and Disko Bay. Our observations furthermore indicate that coastal, land-based seismometers located near calving termini (e.g. as part of the new Greenland Ice Sheet Monitoring Network (GLISN)) can aid investigations into the largely unexplored, oceanographic consequences of iceberg calving.

Full-glacier-thickness icebergs are frequently observed to capsize as they calve into the ocean. As they capsize they may collide with the glaciers’ termini; previous studies have hypothesized that such collisions are the source of teleseismic ‘glacial earthquakes’. We use laboratory-scale experiments, force-balance modeling and theoretical arguments to show that (1) the contact forces during these collisions are strongly influenced by hydrodynamic forces and (2) the associated glacial earthquake magnitudes (expressed as twice-integrated force histories) are related to the energy released by the capsizing icebergs plus a hydrodynamic term that is composed of drag forces and hydrodynamic pressure. Our experiments and first-order modeling efforts suggest that, due to hydrodynamic forces, both contact force and glacial earthquake magnitudes may not be directly proportional to the energy released by the capsizing icebergs (as might be expected). Most importantly, however, our results highlight the need to better understand the hydrodynamics of iceberg capsize prior to being able to accurately interpret seismic signals generated by iceberg collisions.