Global warming could be good and bad for Alaska  Posted:
Tuesday, February 27, 2001  JUNEAU (AP) -- Rising global
temperatures could bring both good news and bad news to Alaska,
with effects ranging from longer growing seasons for farmers to
building collapses as permafrost melts in the Interior, an
expert told lawmakers Monday.  Alaska has already experienced a
10-degree temperature increase in recent decades as worldwide
use of fossil fuels has pumped carbon dioxide into the
atmosphere, said Gunter Weller, a retired University of Alaska
geophysics professor and executive director of Arctic Climate
Impact Assessment.  ''All of us who live in Alaska know that the
winters are much warmer,'' Weller told the House Resources
Committee.  The carbon dioxide acts like the glass in
greenhouse, allowing sunlight in, but keeping heat from
escaping, Weller said. Worldwide, temperatures have increased by
1 degree Fahrenheit over the past century or so, but regions in
higher latitudes, including Alaska, have heated up fas