As Climate Change Melts Alaska's Permafrost, Roads Sink, Bridges Tilt
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Community Community As you shop, The keep your Kindergarten P6eyes open for P16 Section of ColourMax, the Birla Public most exciting School marks new viola its Annual Day series in years. ‘Natureza’19’. Wednesday, December 25, 2019 Rabia II 28, 1441 AH Doha today: 180 - 230 DRAWDOWN: Mud flows coming off the top layers of a melting permafrost from the hillside above Nome, Alaska. COVER Unleashed STORY As climate change melts Alaska’s permafrost, roads sink, bridges tilt and greenhouse gases release. P4-5 BOLLYWOOD HOLLYWOOD Meghna Gulzar: Stop treating Ed Sheeran to take acid-attack survivor as ‘bechari’. another break from music. Page 14 Page 15 2 GULF TIMES Wednesday, December 25, 2019 COMMUNITY ROUND & ABOUT PRAYER TIME Fajr 4.54am Shorooq (sunrise) 6.18am Zuhr (noon) 11.35am Asr (afternoon) 2.32pm Maghreb (sunset) 4.52pm Isha (night) 6.22pm USEFUL NUMBERS Into The Ashes money he stole, and when they take what Nick now values DIRECTION: Aaron Harvey the most – his wife – he has nothing left to lose. Confronted CAST: Marguerite Moreau, Frank Grillo, James Badge Dale by the town sheriff , who is also his father-in-law, Nick must SYNOPSIS: With an honest job and a loving wife, Nick decide if he will stay on his new path or indulge in his need for Brenner believed he had safely escaped his violent, criminal revenge and force his enemies to pay for what they have done. history. But his old crew hasn’t forgotten about him or the THEATRES: The Mall Emergency 999 Worldwide Emergency Number 112 Kahramaa – Electricity and Water 991 Local Directory 180 International Calls Enquires 150 Hamad International Airport 40106666 Labor Department 44508111, 44406537 Mowasalat Taxi 44588888 Qatar Airways 44496000 Hamad Medical Corporation 44392222, 44393333 Qatar General Electricity and Water Corporation 44845555, 44845464 Primary Health Care Corporation 44593333 44593363 Qatar Assistive Technology Centre 44594050 Qatar News Agency 44450205 44450333 Q-Post – General Postal Corporation 44464444 Humanitarian Services Offi ce (Single window facility for the repatriation of bodies) Ministry of Interior 40253371, 40253372, 40253369 Ministry of Health 40253370, 40253364 Hamad Medical Corporation 40253368, 40253365 Qatar Airways 40253374 Mamangam the banks of Bharathapuzha in Tirunavaya, warriors from DIRECTION: M Padmakumar diff erent parts of India display their skills. CAST: Mammootty, Neeraj Madhav, Anu Sithara SYNOPSIS: During the Mamankam festival held at THEATRES: Landmark te Unqu uo ot Q “If e opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.” – Milton Berle Community Editor For movie timings and Kamran Rehmat further details please scan e-mail: [email protected] the QR code above with your Telephone: 44466405 mobile phone camera or visit qatarcinemas.com Fax: 44350474 Wednesday, December 25, 2019 GULF TIMES 3 ROUND & ABOUT COMMUNITY WHEN: January 15 – July 1 TIME: 6:30pm – 9pm Get trained by experts to be a good speaker. Smedley Toastmasters is conducting a six-month speech-craft programme that teaches new members to speak confi dently and develop leadership skills. For more information, 66053485, 33232490 or visit www.SmedleyToastmasters.org The Colour Run 2020 water sports, Winter Dragon Boat Festival WHERE: QNCC is back to show us their fast rowing skills. Ballet Lessons WHEN: January 25 Dragon boating is a canoe-sport and was WHERE: Music and Arts Atelier TIME: 7am – 10pm originally a traditional festival game dating WHEN: Ongoing Your Health First is a fi ve-kilometre, back 2,000 years throughout Southern TIME: 4pm – 8pm untimed event. At each kilometre mark, China. It has now become a popular sport For more info e-mail at registration@ Colour Runners are doused from head to toe with competitions held around the world. atelierqatar.com or call on 33003839. in a diff erent coloured powder. Participants wear white at the starting line and fi nish the race plastered in colour. Once the 5k is over, the fun continues at the Finish Festival, a larger-than-life party equipped with music, dancing, photo ops, activity booths, vendors, and more massive colour throws, which create millions of vivid colour combinations. Gems and Jewels Exhibition WHERE: Museum of Islamic Art WHEN: Ongoing till January 18 TIME: 9am onwards The exhibition comes in celebration of the Qatar-India 2019 Year of Culture and presents a look at magnifi cent gems and jewellery from India. Set in Stone: Gems and Jewels from Royal Indian Courts showcases more than 100 pieces from across Qatar Al Wakalat Car Market 2019 After School Activities Museums’ (QM) collections, including many WHERE: Parking opposite to Khalifa WHERE: Atelier masterpieces that have never been displayed International Stadium WHEN: Ongoing before. WHEN: Ongoing till December 28 Music and arts activities for students TIME: 4pm – 11:59pm taking place after they fi nish their day in Al Wakalat Car Market aims to congregate school includes Group Music lessons, Hip- car enthusiasts, prospective buyers, and hop, Ballet, Drawing and Painting, Drama automotive retailers with the best deals of Theatre & Taekwondo. Ages between 5 and 10 the year in a single location. 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The fi ve-day in the following disciplines like traditional leadership and innovation programme is classical and folk dance forms, art and an exciting series of interactive workshops, craft, drawing and painting, personality energetic activities and fun-fi lled challenges development and public speaking, Bollywood specifi cally designed to inspire and enable dance, contemporary, hip hop styles, music each and every student to uncover their both vocals and instrumentals. To develop unique abilities, develop greater confi dence health consciousness, we train them karate, and master strategies for success in the yoga with special sessions for kids and adults. classroom and beyond. Programme leader, Mamangam has also come up with chess and Dr Ram B. Ramchandran is Vice Dean and robotics in regular batches in an attempt to Winter Dragon Boat Festival 2020 Professor of Strategy and Planning at the give a better learning experience, as they WHERE: Museum of Islamic Art O.P. Jindal Global School, India. The event is sharpen their minds and brains too. WHEN: January 24 Public Speaking Classes for Adults organised by Right Track Consultants. For those who wish to register for more Row, paddle, hurry up! Qatar’s largest WHERE: Sharq Capital, C Ring Road For registration details, contact 55448835. details, visit www.mamangamqatar.in Compiled by Nausheen Shaikh. E-mail: [email protected], Events and timings subject to change 4 GULF TIMES Wednesday, December 25, 2019 COMMUNITY COVER STORY Disruption ahead Alaska’s permafrost is under assault from a warming climate, and it’s happening a lot faster than anticipated. Hillside slopes have liquefied, unleashing slides that end up as muddy deltas in salmon streams, writes Hal Bernton n unpaved highway runs north out of Nome, carving through more than 70 lonely miles of tundra before Adead-ending at this Inupiaq village. Maintenance crews keep the route open during the summer months. The work has become increasingly costly as a layer of ice and frozen dirt under the road softens into soggy muck, and stretches of road bed crack and collapse. “There is so much melting. We just keep having to haul in gravel,” said Calvin Schaeff er, of the Alaska state Department of Transportation. Alaska’s permafrost is under assault from a warming climate, and it’s happening a lot faster than anticipated. Hillside slopes have liquefi ed, unleashing slides that end up as muddy deltas in salmon streams. The ground under the Nome airport runway — key to linking the community to the outside world — has thawed, requiring costly patches. And during the hottest July on record, a sinkhole 14 feet deep opened along a main roadway in the city. For a region where climate change also is bringing profound PERMAFROST: A view of very icy permafrost known as yedoma along the Itkillik River in northern Alaska. changes off shore, these are disruptive developments. As the northern Bering Sea warms, bird NOAA report noted that northern and marine mammal die-off s are This has been a regions are now a net contributor on the rise and winter ice is on to greenhouse gas emissions as the the decline, enabling storms to wake-up call to the permafrost thaw quickens. gain strength over open water and climate-science In Alaska, the permafrost retreat slam into coastal communities like requires a fundamental rethinking Teller. community. What has of the fate of things built on top of The accelerating melt is a global it. concern: Permafrost, which mostly been happening at Oil pipelines, drilling pads and lies in the northern reaches of the other structures will need to be planet, is a vast carbon storehouse some of our field sites shored up as ice-rich permafrost of frozen plants and animals that is a whole different melts and the ground sags. In release greenhouse gases as they towns such as Nome, the changes warm and decompose.