ALASKA : FRONTLINE OF CLIMATE CHANGE
While we imagine Alaska to be a vast and indomitable land, it is in fact the canary in the coal mine for our planet. An effect known as Arctic amplification is warming Alaska at rates far higher than the rest of the world. The result is receding glaciers, melting permafrost, wildlife habitat destroyed, and the Inuit villages that have endured for millennia are being forced to relocate due to coastal erosion. At the same time, the recent opening of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling places one of the last great tracts of pristine American wilderness in jeopardy.
A failed Arctic ecosystem will have dire effects on the whole planet. Yet when we sound the alarm by speaking in degrees of warming, of increments of sea level rise, and use terms like feedback loops, we become overwhelmed. We tune out rather than take action.
What moves minds is a visceral, emotional connection to the land and the people directly affected by the these climatic changes. Photography can do this. It can transcend the politics to push the needle towards the conservation of nature. It can inspire us to protect far away peoples & cultures.
The Great Alaska Project is designed to do this; to document the people and lands of the last great American frontier.
a warming arctic
Alaska has warmed 4.2°F since 1970, nearly three times the global average, driving widespread glacier retreat and accelerating ice loss across the state's mountain ranges and coastal regions.
arctic amplification effect
The Arctic Amplification Effect comes down to a simple, self-feeding loop. Bright white sea ice acts like a mirror, bouncing sunlight back into space — but as it melts, it uncovers darker ocean water underneath, which soaks up heat instead of reflecting it. That warmer water melts even more ice, exposing even more dark water, and the cycle keeps feeding itself in an accelerating vicious cycle.
Relocation of Native Villages
Coastal erosion and permafrost thaw have already forced some Alaska Native communities to relocate from their ancestral villages including Newtok & Mertarvik which will be documented as part of this project.
Ecosystem Transformation
Warming temperatures are driving a cascade of ecosystem transformation — shifting boreal forests northward, thawing permafrost that destabilizes the land itself, and reshaping habitats for species like polar bears, caribou, salmon, and walrus, whose populations and migration patterns Indigenous communities have relied on for generations.
tundra carbon feedback loop
Tundra is now catching fire after being too wet to burn for the past 5,000 years releasing stored carbon back into the atmposhere— a single fire in 2007 released as much carbon as the entire Arctic tundra had absorbed over the previous quarter century.
Glacial Retreat and Sea Ice Loss
Alaska is among the fastest glacier-loss regions on Earth. Sea ice is disappearing as well, eliminating natural coastal buffers that protect communities from storm surges and erosion. These effects are accelerating.