2024 Alaska Forum on the Environment – Science for Alaska communities

February 16, 2024

The Alaska Forum on the Environment, an annual gathering in Anchorage, is a central networking and presentation opportunity for the AK CASC.

The forum is a key communication event for communicating adaptation science in Alaska and is well-attended by community representatives, federal and state agencies with land management responsibilities, research units across the state, and private companies.

Presentations at the forum are organized into tracks, and AK CASC research has been part of the Climate Change track of the event for several years. This year the track included presentations on SNAP climate tools released in the past year, research on new flood risk products for rural communities, a review of recent climate change reports and their application to Alaska and many other presentations from research groups and community members.

Katie Spellman was the in-person presenter for a packed crowd learning about berries. Audience members asked questions about berries in their region, and shared anecdotes about precipitation changes and impacts on flavor and abundance. The AK CASC is excited to be supporting science that increases our understanding of the impact of climate change on this critical resource.
Jessica Garron, Anne Bruno tribal coordinator for Alaska Attorney General, Angela LeFlamme the legislative liaison for Alaska national guard, and Azara Mohammadi tribal liaison for Alaska national guard enjoy time together at a side meeting.
The Alaska Berry Futures project has published a series of booklets on Cloudberries and Blueberries with a third booklet on Lowbush Cranberries coming soon. AFE attendees got a sneak peak at a draft, but you can keep an eye out for the final version on the AK CASC and AK Berry Futures websites sometime in March.
A great way to understand the role of data tools is as translators. They translate human questions into data questions (queries) and then the data answers are translated into text or graphs or maps that are easier to understand for humans. This slide sequence from the presentation demonstrates that process for temperature data in Anchorage.
AK CASC, ACCAP, and IARC personnel at the joint IARC booth met with community members, decision-makers, and researchers as well as AFE celebrity guest the ‘Bag Monster’.

In the first session of the track on Monday morning Nancy Fresco and Mike DeLue presented a session on publicly available climate data tools for Alaska communities both at the community planning level and for more sophisticated analysis. The presentation covered data outputs from AK-CASC funded research, and a detailed rundown of the Northern Climate Reports tool which was developed out of the IEM project and with substantial guidance from the IEM project team along with programmers and communications staff.

Katie Spellman, Christa Mulder and Malinda Chase presented the current status of the AK CASC-funded Alaska Berry Futures project to a packed room on Wednesday. Over 100 attendees gathered to better understand how a changing climate will impact this critical subsistence resource, and to get a sneak peek at the third in the berry booklet series. The project’s Blueberry and Cloudberry booklets will be joined by a booklet on the future of Lowbush Cranberries sometime this March on the AK CASC and Alaska Berry Futures websites.

The conference also offers opportunities for reconnecting with old partners and developing new relationships to better serve the climate adaptation needs of Alaskans. AK CASC Leadership Team member Micah Hahn held a listening session on wildfire smoke impacts to communities on Thursday, and a full-day workshop for the EPA-funded project on Friday that brought together community members and researchers from UAF, UAA, and the University of Washington. University Deputy Director Jessica Garron and others had the opportunity to connect with coastal Alaskans at the now annual Alaska Coastal Cooperative Community Celebration event.

The joint IARC booth also provided the opportunity to distribute resources developed by the AK CASC and other research units to interested community members, and to make connections with new potential partners.

Posted in Alaska, Climate change, Communication, Community, Outreach, education & citizen science