Ice and Fire
Listen to climate change in Alaska through place-based narrative.
Ice and Fire is a podcast that uses audio storytelling to share cryosphere change as the global climate warms. The cryosphere is all of Earth's frozen surface water including frozen freshwater lakes, glaciers, permafrost and sea ice -- frozen saltwater.
It only takes a small temperature increase for water to melt or thaw from solid into liquid form, yet a cascade of impacts result when we lose ice to fastly flowing liquid.
Season one emphasizes the significance of glacier melt, and connects listeners to distant glaciers rapidly responding to anthropogenic climate change through dialogue with researchers, traditional knowledge-bearers, and by sharing audio of ice-melt in real time.
Season two, available now, is all about permafrost thaw.
Ice and Fire
adaptation: managed retreat
In the closing episode of the Permafrost Thaw season, we hear stories of landscape change that have long-sustained and been observed by Native people in Alaska's Kuskokwim River area. We hear their stories of adaptation, including managed retreat of buildings away from rapidly eroding riverbanks.
We are reminded of ways in which permafrost thaw relates to distant, global populations.
topics and purpose: changes to the land described by the Yup'ik people, and adaptation approaches in present times
terms defined: prevention, adaptation and managed retreat
notes: Connect with Rewiring America! This episode was funded, in part, by a grant from the Institute for Journalism & Natural Resources. Permission to use external audio clips was granted by Alaska Public Media and National Public Radio.