Podcast: WSP’s John Thornley on Arctic Engineering and the Impact of Climate Change

John Thornley, vice president and senior geotechnical engineer at WSP in Anchorage, Alaska, forged his career in the region’s extreme cold, but a warming climate is changing the profession with new opportunities, complexities and risks.

United States | Tuesday, June 25, 2024
Reading Time : 00:45 seconds

Engineering resilient infrastructure in frigid regions takes a special set of skills and expertise, especially as climate change introduces new variables to the profession.

WSP’s John Thornley has built a geotechnical engineering career over nearly 20 years in Anchorage, Alaska. He spoke recently to the Engineering Management Institute’s Geotechnical Podcast, discussing cold region challenges, the risks of thawing permafrost to ground stability, the importance of international collaboration in the field and more in Episode 104: The Most Valuable Skills for Working Successfully in Cold Regions.

“Things are starting to change quite rapidly up here in the Arctic and Subarctic,” Thornley says, “and we’re starting to see some real impacts on existing infrastructure and how we approach new infrastructure decades into the future.”