U.S. military bases in the Arctic and sub-Arctic are failing to prepare their installations for long-term climate change as required, the Pentagon's watchdog office says.
FILE - In this Jan. 30, 2014 photo, an RQ7 Shadow unmanned aircraft flies from its pneumatic catapult launcher at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska. U.S. military bases in the Arctic and sub-Arctic are failing to harden their installations against long-term climate change as required, even though soaring temperatures and melting ice already are cracking base runways and roads and worsening flood risks up north, the Pentagon's watchdog office said April 14, 2022.
Increasing hurricanes, flooding, storms and wildfires in recent years have caused billions of dollars in damage to Florida's Tyndall Air Force Base, Nebraska's Offutt Air Force Base and other U.S. military installations, and interrupted training and other operations. Further, “most installation leaders at the six installations we visited in the Arctic and sub-Arctic region were unfamiliar with military installation resilience planning requirements, processes, and tools,” the inspector general reports said.
The Arctic and sub-Arctic are important to U.S. strategic aims in part because of rising tensions and competition with Russia and China, and in part because sharply rising temperatures are melting sea ice and opening up both shipping lanes and access to the region’s oil and other resources, increasing interest and traffic in the region.
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