Us Military Bases Alaska - EIELSON AIR FORCE BASE — When warming thawed the frozen ground beneath the munitions repair facility years ago, the foundation shifted, causing deep cracks to spread through the thick concrete walls.
Over time, the repair bay floor for missiles and other explosives began to separate from the floor, causing the 12-foot blast-resistant door to deviate so that it could not close properly, according to Defense Department documents and interviews with base construction officials.
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Then the entire facility, built into a sloping hillside and hidden in a patch of dense trees, began to slowly move toward the base of 10,000 people who work and live below.
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In Alaska, not only wildlife and indigenous communities have been greatly affected by warming, but also US military bases from the Cold War era. After closure, some of these bases, like Eielson, became strategic again because of their proximity to Russia, China and North Korea, and the vast Arctic resources that global warming made available to rival countries in the first place. opportunity.
"Alaska is the most strategic place in the world," said U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, this spring in a statement announcing the arrival of the first two F-35 fighter jets in two aircraft squadrons to be based there. .
The harmful effects of global warming are increasing the cost of ongoing operations at three of the four major US military bases in Alaska: Eielson, Fort Wainwright and Clear Air Force Base. All are located in a warming area of Alaska where there is a mosaic or "discontinuous" permafrost that can melt.
Military planners have requested more than $1 billion over five years to fund the construction needed to keep the three bases operating and to support the employees and families who work and live there, according to an analysis by the Howard Center for in Investigative Journalism of submitted military construction requests. service. in Congress from fiscal year 2015-2020. Although only a portion of this spending is earmarked for climate-related work, this portion is expected to grow.
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"At the very least, you can delay the serious consequences" of global warming for several decades, said Vladimir Romanovsky, a professor of geophysics and permafrost expert at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. "More work and more money will be needed."
Eielson was on the brink of closure when the Air Force decided to station two squadrons of its fifth-generation stealth fighters there in 2016, boosting the base and surrounding communities as the damaging effects of global warming became apparent.
Over the years, as engineers watched the munitions repair facility, Building 6385, transform into melting ground, they patched cracks and made other repairs in hopes of saving it, Jason said. Stormont, the facility's project manager. "They filled it up over the years to try to preserve it," he said in an interview, surrounded by four security escorts who escorted the visitor out of the secret facility.
"It can't be restored, so we're (demolishing) the entire building to the ground," Stormont said. The cost of the rebuild is $15.5 million, according to Air Force budget construction documents.
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The new building will require steel piles 100 feet deep to prevent it from becoming unstable and unsafe again, said Mark Hoague, F-35 Facilities Program planner at Eielson.
Because of the explosives contained within, the device could not be built anywhere else on the base other than the isolated pile of discontinuous permafrost where it now sits, he said.
Despite the decision to replace the Eielson ammunition facility, the Department of Defense has no engineering standards for the long-term effects of global warming on military bases in Alaska, according to a May 2019 Department of Defense report, " Report to Congress on Military Structures in 2019." Permafrost Areas," the Republican-led Senate Armed Services Committee demanded.
"Unfortunately, there are no proven design standards to provide engineers with a method of calculating melt depth or ice strength over long periods of time," the report said. "Developing a common industry practice to estimate the temperature rise of this project is crucial for resilient Arctic and sub-Arctic construction."
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The Senate committee asserted that the Defense Department's failure to understand the impact of climate change on military installations built on permafrost "may over time undermine DOD's military readiness, mission capability, military construction , and valuable taxpayer resources."
A new hangar for incoming F-35 squadrons is being built at Eielson Air Force Base. (Photo: Sara Karlovitch)
Over the past three years, new construction and repairs to existing buildings on or around the permafrost beneath the 63,000-acre Eielson base have cost $164 million, according to Air Force budget documents. Most of the new construction is related to the arrival of two F-35 squadrons.
At least $5 million was spent at Eielson to excavate and replace the permafrost with replacement material or install cooling systems to keep the permafrost from melting, the report said. This includes the soil beneath the new concrete and earth-covered bunkers that can contain up to 500,000 pounds of explosives.
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"I think it's important to recognize that the issues (of global warming) are going to be different at each base," said John Conger, former assistant secretary of defense for energy, installations and environment and now director of the Center for Climate and Environment. Security, a Washington-based institution that promotes policies to reduce the threat to national security from climate change.
Military officials have long recognized global warming as a threat to operations and international stability. Under President Donald Trump, who disputes the overwhelming scientific evidence that global warming exists, the Pentagon has sought to ignore the issue. For example, he largely stopped using terms like "climate change" and "global warming" or giving press briefings on the matter so as not to anger the White House, according to current and former military officials. .
About 85% of Alaska is in permafrost, defined as ice, rock or soil that remains below freezing for at least two consecutive years. Far north in Alaska and in the Arctic, permafrost is more stable than in the warmer central region, which is characterized by patches of permafrost that melt and become unstable.
Army Corps of Engineers Permafrost Tunnel Research Facility Manager Gary Larson in one of the tunnels, which is 40,000 years old and kept at a constant temperature of 26 degrees. (Photo: Sara Karlovitch)
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Researchers from the U.S. The Army Corp of Engineers, which studies permafrost, says there are only three ways to deal with it: heat it so it melts, then build it up, keep it frozen with underground coolers, or dig it up and replace it it more. solid material that does not melt.
Alaska is warming twice as fast as any other US state and twice as fast as the global average, according to the Fourth National Climate Assessment. About a meter of permafrost melts in Alaska every decade, said Romanovsky, a permafrost expert.
Melting permafrost is leaving its mark across the state in many ways: wavy "roller coaster" roads, leaning buildings, landslides, large sinkholes, eroding shorelines, flooding and more lightning that would spark more fires, a problem at Clear Air Force Station .
The melting permafrost at Cleara was an early-warning radar site during the Cold War for incoming land- and submarine-launched intercontinental ballistic missiles, according to a January 2019 Defense Department study titled "Climate Impact Report ." Change in the Ministry of Defense."
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When permafrost melts, the result is more groundwater than usual. As the water evaporates, it turns into clouds that produce more rain and more lightning, said Thomas A. Douglas, chief U.S. scientist. Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory.
In turn, lightning ignites other fires. "If you look on Google Earth and zoom out, you'll see (Clean Air Station) surrounded by woods," Douglas said. “So fast... you're on the brink of what could be burning right up to your door.
Heat can also be a more direct accelerator of fire. In 2013, an unusually hot summer in Alaska resulted in wildfires that burned more than 1 million acres. In 2019, which was even hotter, fires burned more than 2.5 million acres, according to state fire officials.
The fires, in turn, burn the organic matter and plants that help keep the permafrost frozen, leading to more melting, Douglas said. Smoke from wildfires also releases more carbon into the air, increasing global warming.
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"We actually had places that measured our annual air temperature above freezing last year, which is unheard of," said Jeff Curry, northern regional materials engineer for the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Utilities in Fairbanks.
At Fort Wainwright, a 1.6 million-acre military training post with 7,200 troops in Fairbanks, the Army Corps of Engineers conducted extensive soil and core sampling to map discontinuous permafrost across much of the base for they avoid building on top of it. already.
Base officials said they could not provide details on the additional costs needed to avoid building on permafrost. but
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