Climate Wire | Fox, Alaska is a small town, but on Monday it invited one of the top Pentagon officials for a unique tour.
Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks visited to inspect a 360-foot-long tunnel dug into the frozen ground by military engineers more than 50 years ago. Its purpose is to help scientists and Pentagon officials understand more about permafrost, a study that’s becoming more important as the world warms.
Climate change is rapidly changing the Arctic landscape, especially the permafrost that underlies buildings throughout the region. Rising temperatures are starting to melt frozen ground, threatening to destabilize decades-old buildings in the process.
The situation is particularly worrying for the US military, which maintains installations throughout the Arctic region. And that’s one reason Mr. Hicks embarked on a two-day tour of the country’s northernmost military base.
“Building and maintaining infrastructure such as runways on permafrost poses unique challenges for Arctic countries growing under the influence of climate change,” Hicks wrote in the paper. Twitter post on monday.
That’s not the only concern. Melting ice in the Arctic Ocean is opening up new shipping routes, which is attracting the attention of America’s biggest geopolitical rivals, China and Russia.
“The North Pole is very strategically important. You can go from Alaska to almost any theater in the northern hemisphere,” Pentagon spokesman Eric Pahon, who is traveling with Mr. Hicks, said in a telephone interview. . “We have to be able to operate and support[military personnel and assets]in those theaters.
Defense readiness also includes adapting military vehicles to operate in conditions ranging from extreme cold to extreme wetness. “We’ve seen what the early spring thaw does to Ukraine,” Pakhon said, referring to the muddy conditions that have slowed the movement of troops and vehicles.
Robert McCoy, director of the Geophysical Laboratory at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, established by Congress in 1946 and working closely with the Department of Defense on environmental and climate issues, said that beyond thawing permafrost, it is critical to national defense. He said it could be the ministry’s most pressing issue. — DoD assets are also affected by coastline erosion and frequent flooding.
Also, buildings, pipelines and other infrastructure built on piles require so-called “passive cooling” to prevent structures from becoming unstable due to thawing permafrost.
“The Air Force is spending a lot of money in Alaska to address this issue,” McCoy said. “We have two F-35s.” [advanced fighter] Ailson’s Squadron [Air Force Base] The $500 million investment to house these squadrons includes 36 new buildings and 54 aircraft hangars, according to the Pentagon.
During his visit, Hicks also stopped by the Ted Stevens Center for Arctic Security Studies to learn how experts are advancing U.S. interests through new security and research partnerships with other Arctic nations. . Staff at the Stevens Center declined to comment on the visit, citing Pentagon media policies.
Pahhon said such regional partnerships allow the United States to learn from allies about optimizing base operations and mission readiness in the Polar Regions.
“Some of the questions we’re trying to answer are, ‘How can we safely fly the F-35 in temperatures below -50 degrees Celsius?'” [And] “What happens when you take an Abrams tank into a 50-degree environment and try to fire it?” he said. “There is already a lot of great training going on here, and we can always learn more from our regional partners.”
Reprinted from E&E News with permission of POLITICO, LLC. Copyright 2023. E&E News provides important news for energy and environmental professionals.
