Dalton Highway and the Trans-Alaska Pipeline are seen in Alaska. Credit: DeAgostini/Getty Images The Dalton Highway and the Trans-Alaska Pipeline are companions that rank among Alaska’s most vital and iconic pieces of infrastructure. The pipeline exists because of the highway. The highway exists because of the pipeline. What threatens one, threatens the other. The highway is being pummeled by flooding, staggered by thawing permafrost and confronted by monstrous underground landslides known as frozen debris lobes. Since 2015, the highway has undergone a half dozen major overhauls to bolster it against natural disasters triggered by climate change. The highway has been elevated to keep it from being submerged by flooding rivers engorged by heavy rains and increasing snow melt. It has been reinforced against thawing permafrost that has left it so weakened in places it could threaten the heavy 18-wheelers that rumble its path daily. And a mile long section […]