Anchorage, Alaska: It seems the effects of climate change are moving a bit faster than expected in Alaska.
According to Arctic scientists, Anchorage is already experiencing coastal erosion that threatens the city's international airport and food sources are also being threatened by global warming, says a report from Mashable.
During his trip to Alaska, US President Barack Obama took a boat tour of Kenai Fjords National Park in Seward to highlight changes in Arctic region caused by climate change.
Also Read: Obama tours glacier to highlight march of climate change
Obama has warned that melting glaciers in Alaska are threatening hunting and fishing upon which generations have depended for their way of life and for their jobs.
While Aklaska sits on the front lines of climate change, the rest of the nation is getting warmer too and communities across the world may soon have to face dire consequences.
According to a new study, Alaska’s glaciers alone lose about 75 gigatons - that’s 75 billion tons - of ice each year.
This year, wildfires in Alaska's boreal forests have burned more than 5.2 million acres, a land area equivalent to the state of Massachusetts, the report in Mashable added.
And coastal communities are experiencing extremely high rates of erosion as a result of thinning sea ice.
Check out these pictures as they illustrate how climate change is altering Alaska -
The toe or leading edge of Colony Glacier and Inner Lake George near Anchorage, Alaska, photographed in June 2015. Image: Mark Thiessen/AP
Part of Colony Glacier near Anchorage, Alaska. Image: Mark Thiessen/AP
Margerie Glacier, one of many glaciers that make up Alaska's Glacier Bay National Park in 2014. Image: Kathy Matheson/AP
Ice chunks floating in Inner Lake George after cleaving off Colony Glacier. Image: Mark Thiessen/AP
A glacier in Lake Clark Pass near Port Alsworth, Alaska in 2013. Image: Mark Thiessen/AP
The marshy, tundra landscape surrounding Newtok is seen from a plane on July 6, 2015. Image: Andrew Burton/Getty
Newtok is an isolated village with no roads that lead to there and residents are dependent on boats, snowmobiles and bush planes - weather permitting.
Newtok is one of several remote Alaskan villages that is being forced to relocate because of warming temperatures that are causing the melting of permafrost, widening of rivers and the erosion of land and coastline.
Smoke rises from the Bogus Creek Fire on June 7, 2015, one of the many wildfires that burned at least 5.2 million acres in Alaska this year. Image: Matt Snyder/Alaska Division of Forestry via AP
Trees erupt in flames in the Stetson Creek Fire near Cooper Landing, Alaska on June 17, 2015. Image: US Army National Guard/AP
A “Bambi Bucket,” hanging from a helicopter releases hundreds of gallons of water onto the Stetson Creek Fire near Cooper Landing, Alaska on June 17, 2015. Image: US Army National Guard/AP
Alaska is warming at a rate two to three times faster than the mainland United States, and the average winter temperature has risen 6.3 degrees over the past 50 years, said a report from The Atlantic.
