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Yereth RosenAlaska Beacon
The Covid-19 pandemic was an overwhelming event in Alaska, and a new state report describes how Indigenous residents, the elderly and Asian people and Pacific Islanders suffered the most as the state’s experience with the disease transitioned through different phases.
From the time the first Alaska case was detected on March 12, 2020, to the end of the declared public health emergency in May of 2023, there were seven distinct periods of the pandemic in the state, according to the report, which was released as a bulletin from the Alaska Division of Public Health’s epidemiology section.
State epidemiologists have classified the seven periods as eras, distinguished by different types of non-pharmaceutical interventions — defined as public health measures to limit the community spread, such as school closures — the availability of vaccines, the variants of the virus that dominated, the availability of antiviral medicines and other factors.
Of the seven eras, the most serious was the fourth, which was dominated by the Delta variant of the virus. That era started in July of 2021 and ran through the end of that year. During that period, 2,021 Alaskans were hospitalized with the disease and 719 died from it, according to the report. Nearly half of Alaska’s COVID-19 deaths occurred then and COVID-19 was the state’s leading cause of death during the period, the report said. Over that entire year, COVID-19 ranked as the third leading cause of death in Alaska, behind cancer and heart disease.
The Delta variant era also proved to be the most dangerous for younger Alaskans, with nearly two-thirds of the deaths among those under 55 years of age.
The Delta variant emerged after the start of vaccinations and Alaskans who had been fully vaccinated were better protected against the disease, the report said. Earlier research by state epidemiologists found that unvaccinated Alaskans with COVID-19 were 4.49 times more likely to die than were Alaskans who had received their full vaccine doses, as recommended by health officials.
A medical mask is attached on Sept. 21, 2021, to the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ statue of founder Charles Bunnell. Such masks were commonly worn at the time, which was during the most severe phase of the COVID-19 pandemic in Alaska. Credit: Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon
The second era, from June to December of 2020, ranked as the second most dangerous, with 968 hospitalization and 291 deaths. And two eras, spanning the period from January to October of 2022, were characterized by Omicron subvariants, and resulted in high case numbers but lower severity, with lower death rates and hospitalization rates.
Alaska Natives and American Indians consistently had the highest rates of death and hospitalization during the entire pandemic, reflecting some longstanding health disparities, the report said.
In some parts of rural Alaska, lack of adequate water and sanitation service was a key factor in those disparities, earlier research found.
There were some sharp geographic differences in vaccination patterns, the report showed. Vaccination rates were highest in Southeast Alaska, Anchorage and Southwest Alaska; they were lowest in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough and in the Gulf Coast region.
The epidemiologist team that compiled the report said there are lessons from Alaska’s COVID-19 experience that should be useful for the next pandemic.
The most important of those lessons, the team said in a written statement, “is that early, well-coordinated, and community-centered public health measures are crucial.”
That means ensuring that communities have timely access to prevention and response tools and that local leaders are involved in the effort, the statement said.
Another respiratory illness, though of a nature yet to be determined, is considered the likeliest cause of the next pandemic, the statement said.
“While it is impossible to predict the exact cause of a future pandemic, global health experts consistently point to respiratory viruses such as new influenza strains or emerging coronaviruses as the most likely sources, making continued readiness in this area especially important,” the statement said.
Although the public health emergency is over, COVID-19 has not disappeared. The virus continues to circulate in the population. In 2024, it was the cause of 58 Alaska deaths, according to state records.
Age-adjusted COVID-19 death rates among Alaska residents are broken down by race and pandemic era, from March 2020 to May 2023. Beyond the first era, when the virus was new to Alaska and case numbers, hospitalizations and deaths were few, Alaska Native and American Indians consistently had the highest mortality rates.
Credit: Graph provided by the Alaska Division of Public Health epidemiology section/Alaska Department of Health
Alaska Beacon is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Alaska Beacon maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Claire Stremple for questions: info@alaskabeacon.com.
The post Alaska report describes COVID-19 phases and lessons for future pandemic responses appeared first on ICT.
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Camera traps in China capture first-ever footage of Amur tigress with five cubs
(news.mongabay.com)
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Nika Bartoo-Smith
Underscore Native News + ICT
Caskey Russell, an enrolled member of the Tlingit Nation (Eagle / Kooyu Kwáan) of Alaska, is a father, a professor and a musician.
Russell currently teaches Indigenous studies and literature at Fairhaven College at Western Washington University, where he also attended for his undergraduate and masters degrees.
This September, Russell published his debut novel, “The Door on The Sea.” The epic fantasy is a sort of coming of age story about Elān, a young book-lover. He must embark on a journey to save his people, the Aaní, from the shape-shifting Kóoshdakáa, who are enslaving Indigenous tribes across the region. The novel is the first in a trilogy, with book two set to publish in September 2026, and book three in September 2027.
Photo courtesy of Caskey Russel
The book began as a bedtime story for his young boys, who were both homesick while Russel was on sabbatical with his family in New Zealand in 2013.
“Tired of Tolkien worship and European mythmaking, tired of nightly tears, I found an hour almost every day to write a half page or so about a young warrior from the Flicker House off to battle the infamous Kóoshdakáa of Tlingit myth, the very same shapeshifters my grandmother scared me with as a child,” Russell writes on his website, describing the novel.
Russell’s grandmother, Teew, was born and raised in Heenya Kwáan (Klawock, Alaska). Her family comes from the Kóon Hít (Flicker House) of the Naasteidi Kooyu Kwáan on the eagle/wolf side of the Tlingit Nation. This is the basis for the village where the main character, Elān, comes from.
Russell joined Underscore Native News + ICT via Zoom from his classroom at Fairhaven College, in Bellingham, Washington. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Underscore Native News + ICT: You mention on your website how the initial ideas for this novel were born in Aeotearoa, and began as a bedtime story that your sons helped add to. Tell me more about that time and your inspiration.
Caskey Russell: In 2013 I [took] a sabbatical at the University of Wyoming. I was really excited. And I was going to take my whole family. My boys were in first and fifth grade, and they were not so excited. We left in January, right after New Year’s 2013 and we flew into Auckland. After a day or two the novelty wore off and they were ready to come home.
There were quite a few nights of scenes of crying. I remember sitting around the dinner table and they’re inconsolable, just crying, and they said something like, “We don’t like this house.” And my youngest one said, “And they don’t drive on the right side of the road here.”
The Hobbit movie had just come out, and I would take them to the Hobbit movie at night, and that’s the only thing that seemed to kind of pacify them. We watched the film for about the fifth time. We rented the Lord of the Rings series, and watched that.
So I was sitting in my office at the university, and thought, “I am going to write a book. I’m just going to start writing something Hobbit-like, based on some of the Tlingit tradition I heard growing up and from my grandmother, and then I’m going to read it to them, and I’m just going to create this to try to entertain them, and then also get their feedback.”
I wrote a few pages, read it to them, and immediately they were like, “Oh, we want to be part of this. We want to be characters.” And so I said, “What kind of character do you want to be?”
They told me the characters they wanted. One wanted to be a middle aged warrior. And then Chet wanted to be this armored wolf because he brought a stuffed animal that’s kind of like it was a dog, but it has the Tlingit name Wolf. So I wrote them in there, I combined their first name as middle names.
Photo courtesy of Caskey Russel
Every day I’d write a page or two at the university, and at night, I’d read it to them. So it became a ritual. For like two months, they wanted to hear these stories, and I took all their notes. And then after about two months, they found some good friends and got acclimated, and so we missed a couple nightly readings, and then just kind of fell off.
Then in the pandemic, I found the novel [on my computer]. I opened it up and it was like 80 pages. I thought,“I got plenty of time during the pandemic, let me try to finish this thing.” So I finished it over the pandemic.
UNN + ICT: Tell me more about your grandmother and how she influenced this story?
CR: Growing up, I heard a lot of stories from her, especially around the campfire on the beach, stories about Raven. Those were always memorable, and they’re often very humorous. He was a complete contrarian. The stories I remembered were often involving him lying and having gluttony.
And then I remember the Kóoshdakáa stories she would tell, which are shape shifters in Tlingit. Even when I was living with her after college in my mid 20s, I remember she would hear like a dog howling outside or something at night, and she’d say, “Don’t go out. The Kóoshdakáa is out there.” The dogs can sense the Kóoshdakáa, which in the novel, the wolf can [also sense].
Living with my grandparents, being very close to them, hearing about growing up in the village, all influenced the story. My grandmother was born in 1916 in Heenya Kwáan (Klawock, Alaska). [She stayed there until [her] 30s [when] she came down to Bellingham to go to school. The Bureau of Indian Affairs sent her and a few other Alaskan Natives to go to school, in fact, here at Western Washington University, to become a teacher.
I never really learned Tlingit when I was a kid, but I know some phrases. So the stories, the language, hearing her stories growing up and just who she was, all kind of inspired me.
UNN + ICT: What research went into the book for you?
**CR:**My dissertation was on the Tlingit tribe. Having grown up in the city and having not grown up in Klawock, Alaska, I had the feeling that I was missing out because I’d hear my grandmother and my great uncles talk about Klawock in a very special way. So I decided to have my dissertation focus on stuff I wanted to learn about the Tlingit Tribe. I focused on civil rights, education, language, carving, storytelling, and a poet named Nora Marks Dauenhauer. I would say I have been researching the novel since my 20s, since writing the dissertation.
UNN + ICT: Tell me about your foul-mouthed, somewhat frustrating, yet ultimately very wise, raven character.
CR: I loved writing him because in the beginning I talked about Raven the same way my grandmother did, to get us to laugh and think at the same time and be the contrarian that he was in a lot of the stories I heard growing up. So writing him was fun.
The key to him, his character, is in that very first paragraph or two: salmon. So if you’re wondering about Raven’s motivation, it’s the salmon. That’ll become explicit in book two and then in Book Three. But he doesn’t care much for humans at all. His main motivation is the health of salmon. He’s obsessed with eating salmon, and so to protect the salmon, you have to protect the land. You have to protect the rivers. You have to protect everything, right? Whatever he can do to get humans to protect their rivers, his rivers, as he sees it, and thereby protect the salmon runs he will do.
Photo courtesy of Caskey Russel
UNN + ICT: For most of this story, the characters are on an epic journey in a canoe. Did you grow up canoeing?
CR: I grew up boating and fishing, I was obsessed. I can even remember the first salmon I caught and how that was a big deal coming back, and my grandmother making me cut it up. And my grandmother made the best, what we called growing up Indian barbecue salmon, kind of slow smoked salmon over coals. And kind of like Raven my favorite food ever is salmon.
The canoe I kind of dreamed up. I was over in Maori country in New Zealand and canoeing, like with the Pacific Northwest, is big out there. So I kind of dreamt up a canoe with my boys: two big outriggers where you could store stuff and keep water in it, and attached to it, a big canoe with netting on the side. And my sons drew it, and that was kind of fun, and we imagined what it would be like. And the Maori word for canoe is waka, so I just named it after the Maori word, waka.
UNN + ICT: Are there particular messages or lessons that you hope people will learn from this book?
CR: One of the things I was worried about, I think this is on my website too, is how should I try to make it authentic to Tlingit culture? What do I do when you have two young boys demanding that their stuffed animals [be] in it, that there be pubs like we went to in Hobbiton when we visited the film set? And they wanted metal weapons and they wanted armor. I kind of jettisoned early on this notion that I should try to be authentic to Tlingit culture circa 1700s.
So I jettisoned the notion of trying to be authentic and I put it in a completely speculative world and universe, and then I could have metal armor and swords, and then all these fantasy elements and alien tech, like the dzanti.
So I think the message would be one, there’s a place to try to be as authentic as possible and understand what that means. But there’s also a place for opening up a whole new world and new storytelling and new inventions and new speculative fiction based on the spirit of Tlingit culture.
And then, of course, the Koosh are an allegory for Europeans coming. They come in through the door with this tech. We find out who had a hand in helping the Koosh come into the world in books two and three. But they come in, they take over, they enslave some Indigenous tribes and force them to make their boats so they can go out and travel around. So that’s kind of the allegory for colonization there.
UNN + ICT: So this book began as a bed time story for your, at the time, young boys. Now that it is fully written and published, what feedback have you received from them about the book?
CR: When they were kids, they gave me a whole host of things they wanted to see in the novel: pubs, metal weapons, swords. And they’re the ones that talked about having bear humans who watch out for the bears. Because one of the boys asked me, “Who is protecting bears when they hibernate? Aren’t they vulnerable?” That kind of led to these bear cousins that protect them in the forest. I thought that was a brilliant idea, an island of bears, dangerous bears that don’t like humans.
Photo courtesy of Caskey Russel
The one thing I didn’t put in there that they wanted was laser firing shrimp. I said no. My youngest son has said he refuses to read the novel until I put laser shrimp in there. Of course, he’s kind of joking, but I’m not sure what he thinks of it. I don’t think the oldest one has read anything beyond what I read to him in New Zealand, so I’m not sure what their take on it is, although, when they do read it, they’re going to see there’s a lot of easter eggs for them. It’ll be interesting to see what the boys think. I hope they enjoy it.
UNN + ICT: What else do you want people to know about you and this book?
CR: My website had that line where I’m worried that people don’t like me using Tlingit culture in non traditional ways or non authentic ways. Hopefully people kind of leap into the salmon stream of the fantastic with me. I meant it to not misappropriate or denigrate tradition or authenticity or anything like that, but just to open up a new avenue of storytelling, storytelling in the spirit of Tlingit culture, but also in the spirit of speculative and fantasy fiction.
This story is co-published by Underscore Native News and ICT, a news partnership that covers Indigenous communities in the Pacific Northwest.
The post Opening the door to speculative fiction, in the Spirit of Tlingit culture appeared first on ICT.
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Letter from Publisher. Happy New Year to our readers and supporters,
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Wildfire smoke is an emerging nationwide crisis for the United States. Supercharged by climate change, blazes are swelling into monsters that consume vast landscapes and entire towns. A growing body of evidence reveals that these conflagrations are killing far more people than previously known, as smoke travels hundreds or even thousands of miles, aggravating conditions like asthma and heart disease. One study, for instance, estimated that last January’s infernos in Los Angeles didn’t kill 30 people, as the official tally reckons, but 440 or more once you factor in the smoke. Another recent study estimated that wildfire haze already kills 40,000 Americans a year, which could increase to 71,000 by 2050.
Two additional studies published last month paint an even grimmer picture of the crisis in the U.S. and elsewhere. The first finds that emissions of greenhouse gases and airborne particles from wildfires globally may be 70 percent higher than once believed. The second finds that Canada’s wildfires in 2023 significantly worsened childhood asthma across the border in Vermont. Taken together, they illustrate the desperate need to protect public health from the growing threat of wildfire smoke, like better monitoring of air quality with networks of sensors.
The emissions study isn’t an indictment of previous estimates, but a revision of them based on new data. Satellites have spied on wildfires for decades, though in a somewhat limited way — they break up the landscape into squares measuring 500 meters by 500 meters, or about 1,600 feet by 1,600 feet. If a wildfire doesn’t fully fill that space, it’s not counted. This new study increases that resolution to 20 meters by 20 meters (roughly 66 feet by 66 feet) in several key fire regions, meaning it can capture multitudes of smaller fires.
Individually, tinier blazes are not producing as much smoke as the massive conflagrations that are leveling cities in the American West. But “they add up, and add up big time,” said Guido van der Werf, a wildfire researcher at Wageningen University & Research in the Netherlands and lead author of the paper. “They basically double the amount of burned area we have globally.”
With the 500-meter satellite data, the previous estimate was around 400 million hectares charred each year. Adding the small fires bumps that up to 800 million hectares, roughly the size of Australia. In some parts of the world, such as Europe and Southeast Asia, burned area triples or even quadruples with this improved resolution. While scientists used to think annual wildfire emissions were around 2 gigatons of carbon, or about a fifth of what humanity produces from burning fossil fuels, that’s now more like 3.4 gigatons with this new estimate.
The type of fire makes a huge difference in the emissions, too. A forest fire has a large amount of biomass to burn — brushes, grasses, trees, sometimes even part of the soil — and turn into carbon dioxide and methane and particulate matter, but a grass fire on a prairie has much less. Blazes also burn at dramatically different rates: Flames can race quickly through woodland, but carbon-rich ground known as peat can smolder for days or weeks. Peat fires are so persistent, in fact, that when they ignite in the Arctic, they can remain hidden as snow falls, then pop up again as temperatures rise and everything melts. Scientists call them zombie fires. “It really matters where you’re burning and also how intense the fire can become,” van der Werf said.
But why would a fire stay small, when we’ve seen in recent years just how massive and destructive these blazes can get? It’s partly due to fragmentation of the landscape: Roads can prevent them from spreading, and firefighters stop them from reaching cities. And in general, a long history of fire suppression means they’re often quickly extinguished. (Ironically, this has also helped create some monsters, because vegetation builds up across the landscape, ready to burn. This shakes up the natural order of things, in which low-intensity fires from lightning strikes have cleared dead brush, resetting an ecosystem for new growth — which is why Indigenous tribes have long done prescribed burns.) Farmers, too, burn their waste biomass and obviously prevent the flames from getting out of hand.
Whereas in remote areas, like boreal forests in the far north, lightning strikes typically ignite fires, the study found that populated regions produce a lot of smaller fires. In general, the more people dotting the landscape, the more sources of ignition: cigarette butts, electrical equipment producing sparks, even chains dragging from trucks.
Yes, these smaller fires are less destructive than the behemoths, but they can still be catastrophic in a more indirect way, by pouring smoke into populated areas. “Those small fires are not the ones that cause the most problems,” van der Werf said. “But of course they’re more frequent, close to places where people live, and that also has a health impact.”
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That is why the second study on asthma is so alarming. Researchers compared the extremely smoky year of 2023 in Vermont to 2022 and 2024, when skies were clearer. They were interested in PM 2.5, or particulate matter smaller than 2.5 millionths of a meter, from wildfire smoke pouring in from Quebec, Canada. “That can be especially challenging to dispel from lungs, and especially irritating to those airways,” said Anna Maassel, a doctoral student at the University of Vermont and lead author of the study. “There is research that shows that exposure to wildfire smoke can have much longer-term impacts, including development of asthma, especially for early exposure as a child.”
This study, though, looked at the exacerbation of asthma symptoms in children already living with the condition. While pediatric asthma patients typically have fewer attacks in the summer because they’re not in school and constantly exposed to respiratory viruses and other indoor triggers, the data showed that their conditions were much less controlled during the summer of 2023 as huge wildfires burned. (Clinically, “asthma control” refers to milder symptoms like coughing and shortness of breath as well as severe problems like attacks. So during that summer, pediatric patients were reporting more symptoms.) At the same time, climate change is extending growing seasons, meaning plants produce more pollen, which also exacerbates that chronic disease. “All of those factors compound to really complicate what health care providers have previously understood to be a safe time of year for children with asthma,” Maassel said.
Researchers are also finding that as smoke travels through the atmosphere, it transforms. It tends to produce ozone, for instance, that irritates the lungs and triggers asthma. “There’s also the potential for increased formation of things like formaldehyde, which is also harmful to human health. It’s a hazardous air pollutant,” said Rebecca Hornbrook, who studies wildfire smoke at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, or NCAR, but wasn’t involved in either study, though a colleague was involved in the emissions one. (Last month, the Trump administration announced plans to dismantle NCAR, which experts say could have catastrophic effects.)
As wildfires worsen, so too does the public health crisis of smoke, even in places that never had to deal with the haze before. Governments now have to work diligently to protect their people, like improving access to air purifiers, especially in schools. “This is no longer an isolated or geographically confined issue,” Maassel said. “It’s really spreading globally and to places that have never experienced it before.”
This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Wildfire smoke is a national crisis, and it’s worse than you think on Jan 2, 2026.
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In his 15 years of farming full time, Quentin Connealy has weathered his share of storms — literally.
The first major flood hit in 2011. Three more came in 2019. The waters rose again in 2024 and ruined about 20 percent of his crops. This past summer, he dealt with at least three hail and wind events that damaged his corn and soybeans.
To Connealy, whose family has been farming in Nebraska for 131 years, the weather has grown more extreme, posing a greater threat to his family’s farmland, which extends across thousands of acres in Burt County about an hour north of Omaha. He tries to plan as much as possible and relies on multiple sources of scientific information to do so.
“The weather’s so unpredictable, we need as many resources around as possible,” Connealy said.
But one of those resources that he — and others — rely on is going away.
Quentin Connealy looks back at his crops from the seat of his tractor. Connealy, who has been farming full time for the past 15 years, said he has had to deal with increasingly extreme weather. Courtesy of Quentin Connealy via Flatwater Free Press
Last month, the University of Nebraska Board of Regents voted to eliminate the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences and three other programs at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, or UNL.
The move means the university system’s flagship campus will no longer be able to produce homegrown meteorologists and geologists — professions that monitor for severe weather and study groundwater, both of which are critical in a state where agriculture remains the economic backbone. The cuts have raised alarm both in and out of the soon-to-be shuttered department.
“The [department] … is a nationally recognized program,” wrote nine professors from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in a letter of support. “Particularly for a state in the center of ‘Tornado Alley,’ there is a need for trained meteorologists and climatologists, which contribute to Nebraska residents’ safety. More nationally, the need for geologists to secure domestic sources of critical minerals is a stated national security concern. Closing this program disrupts a crucial pipeline of qualified professionals for all of these fields.”
While acknowledging the pain inflicted by the cuts, regents and university leadership said action was needed. UNL, the largest of the University of Nebraska System’s four campuses and the largest college in the state, faces a $21 million structural budget deficit. Eliminating the Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Department, estimated to save $1.85 million, was part of a larger effort to erase the deficit.
“My family, we’ve got 26 degrees from this institution, so to say that this decision comes lightly is as far from the truth as it can be,” Regent Tim Clare said at a December 5 meeting where the board voted to eliminate the department. “We’re confronting a serious budget challenge that threatens the long-term stability of our university system.”
But proponents of the Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Department say its elimination will do long-term harm to Nebraska.
“Outside of cutting agronomy, animal science or plant pathology, I don’t think you could have another department at the university that was more important to agriculture, because that’s your groundwater, that’s your weather,” said Eric Hunt, assistant extension educator of agricultural meteorology at the University of Nebraska Extension. “We just cut something that is vital to the long-term viability of agriculture in the state.”
Losing local knowledge and expertise
Adam Houston is blunt about the importance of his students’ work when they leave UNL, particularly those who become forecasters at the National Weather Service, the federal agency responsible for issuing extreme weather warnings.
“The work that we’re doing is training these students to go out and save lives,” said Houston, a professor of atmospheric sciences in the soon-to-be eliminated department.
Other Nebraska universities offer courses similar to those in the department, but the Earth and atmospheric sciences degree program is the only one of its kind in the state, according to regents’ meeting documents.
While weather forecasts are easily accessible these days, there is a human element to that data and forecast, said Martha Durr, a faculty member at the Nebraska Indian Community College and a former state climatologist.
“There is still a human at the forecast desk, and they are using their local knowledge and expertise to nudge that forecast model output in a certain way, or to issue a watch and a warning,” Durr said.
Nebraska is no stranger to extreme weather. The past few years alone have brought flash flooding, drought, outbreaks of tornadoes, and strong thunderstorms. These types of weather events are expected to become more frequent due to climate change — making homegrown local expertise all the more valuable. Already, Nebraska is 2.3 degrees Fahrenheit warmer today than in 1970, and rain events now drop 24 percent more water. The state has also experienced 36 billion-dollar disasters since 2005 — up from four in the previous 20-year period.
Quentin Connealy’s farmland in Burt County, Nebraska, flooded three times in 2019. When forecasts allow enough notice, Connealy tries to take steps to protect his farming equipment.
Courtesy of Quentin Connealy via Flatwater Free Press
“What further sets our [Earth and atmospheric sciences] alumni apart is their deep familiarity with Nebraska’s regional climate and weather patterns,” wrote KLKN-TV chief meteorologist Rusty Dawkins in a letter of support for the department. “Their localized knowledge enables them to offer context-sensitive forecasts and risk assessments that out-of-state professionals may miss.”
This need for local expertise also translates to other subjects taught by the department, including geology, Hunt said.
Geologists from the department have worked with local natural resources districts monitoring groundwater — the primary source of drinking water in Nebraska and an essential resource for the state’s ag economy.
At a press conference earlier this year, Governor Jim Pillen referred to water as the state’s lifeblood and called the Ogallala Aquifer, the largest aquifer in North America, “our pot of gold,” the Nebraska Examiner reported.
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Asked specifically about the cuts to the Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Department, spokesperson Laura Strimple said the governor applauded “university leadership for having the courage to make tough decisions in eliminating bloated and duplicative programs to achieve cost savings. More is still needed.”
The department does work on similar topics as other UNL programs, specifically the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources. But state climatologist Deborah Bathke, who has worked in both departments, said the focus in each program varies greatly. “I can say without any doubt that they are not the same thing.”
The department’s alumni have gone on to serve critical roles within the state — the current heads of the Nebraska State Climate Office, the National Drought Mitigation Center, the Conservation and Survey Division, and the Nebraska Water Center all graduated from the department, according to department documents.
Others have gone on to work for local natural resource districts, the Air Force, the Army Corps of Engineers, the National Weather Service, and TV stations across the state.
“We are losing the ability to train the next generation of scientists that want to serve Nebraska … and serve the country the way that we all do with our scientific expertise,” said Bathke, an Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Department alum.
Far-reaching research
There are about 17 faculty in the Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Department, Houston said. Their research carries benefits locally, nationally, and internationally.
Department chair Clinton Rowe highlighted faculty’s research in carbon-sequestration opportunities underneath the state. This subject is of national interest.
“Those kinds of things are important for the economic future of Nebraska,” Rowe said.
And the department has received national renown. Sherilyn Fritz, a professor in the department, was elected this past April to the National Academy of Sciences for her research reconstructing “the history of the environment.”
Fritz is also a lead investigator for the Trans-Amazon Drilling Project, an international research project looking at the evolution of the Amazon rainforest over geologic time.
David Harwood studies past climates and environments as part of the department. He is a leader for the Antarctic Drilling Program, or ANDRILL, an international research effort to understand how ice sheets behaved in the past so that we know what to expect from current global warming.
And then there’s the climate and weather research. Houston led the TORUS project, where his team chased storms to understand their internal structures through drones, mobile mesonets, and radars. Houston’s and the department’s work in meteorology is nationally and internationally recognized, Fritz said. Houston even consulted on the 2024 movie Twisters.
A farmer inspects rotten soybeans on a field destroyed and flooded by the Missouri River near Omaha in 2019.
Johannes Eisele / AFP via Getty Images
Research from the department also informs work coming out of other parts of UNL, including the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources. Associate professor Andrea Basche is among the institute’s researchers who have used Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Department research in the past.
“Getting rid of this department degrades the state’s capacity to predict and adapt to weather and weather extremes that dictate our agricultural success,” Basche said.
Some faculty say they have been offered alternate positions at the university. It is unclear how many will take them or stay in Nebraska.
In her role as state climatologist, Bathke was the lead author on the 2024 Climate Change Impact Assessment Report, detailing how a warming planet is impacting Nebraska. Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Department members served as advisers on the report, and one faculty member was also a lead author.
There were plans for follow-ups, such as using regional climate modeling with crop modeling to determine specific impacts to agriculture and natural resources in Nebraska. Now, Bathke is unsure if those follow-up studies will happen.
“We would have to contract that out to someone who does not have the local expertise of Nebraska,” Bathke said. “Anytime you contract something out, it’s more expensive than if you do it in house.”
This story was originally published by Grist with the headline University of Nebraska is eliminating a key climate research department on Jan 2, 2026.
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