CLIMATE CHALLENGES ON THE KENAI PENINSULA‍

• Average temperatures in Alaska have risen 3.4 ºF in the past half century with Soldotna warming 2.5ºF between 1961 and 2019 and Homer warming 2.84º F over the same period. 

• Over the past half-century, annual available water has declined 62% on the western Kenai Peninsula; wetlands have decreased 6—11% per decade in surface area on the Kenai Lowlands. 

• Current trends indicate that the southern Kenai Peninsula will loose 10-20% of our snowpack by 2030-2059. 

• Ocean acidification will continue to damage vital nurseries for many fish stocks in Kachemak Bay and Cook Inlet, which in turn will harm tourism, substance, commercial fisheries, and our basic way of life here.

• Climate trends threaten the future of the Kenai Peninsula’s salmon runs by depleting water levels and raising temperatures in Cook Inlet streams.

• In the absence of adaptation efforts, damage to public infrastructure caused by climate change could cost Alaska $142 to $181 million per year and a cumulative $4.2 to $5.5 billion by the end of the century.

• There is a projected 66-percent increase in the estimated value of human structures (e.g. homes, businesses) that are at risk to fire in the next half century on the Kenai Peninsula. Estimated costs due to increased wildfires across Alaska are $1.1 to $2.1 billion annually  from 2006 through the end of the century. 

• The Caribou Hills was the epicenter of a spruce bark beetle outbreak that eventually killed about 1 million acres of Sitka, white and Lutz spruce on the Kenai Peninsula from the mid-1980s through the1990s, sustained by consecutive summers of above-average temperatures. Spruce bark beetle’s range is expanding as the state warms, and the scale of outbreaks is increasing. 

• Erosion rates on Eastern shores of Cook Inlet are 1 foot per year, and 2.3 feet per year on the western Homer area.

• The effects of the changing climate have the potential to impact the sustainability of Alaska’s fish and wildlife resources and are beginning to impact Alaska’s natural systems and the uses they sustain.

• Treeline has risen 1m per year on the Kenai Mountains, and shrubline an astounding 2.8m per year. 

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