Arctic research sheds light on effects of sea ice loss
Climate change is having a drastic detrimental impact on the lifestyles of residents of Arctic and subarctic communities in Alaska. Erosion from melting sea ice is slowly destroying some coastal and river communities.
“Kivalina is falling into the ocean because of erosion. Several of our other villages along the river system are also having problems. Noatak is having an erosion problem also. I can’t pinpoint just one community or one person that has been affected by climate change,” said Maija Lukin, Tribal Environmental Manager of the Maniilaq Association in Kotzebue, Alaska.
Winter Arctic sea ice coverage is at the lowest level recorded by satellites. Arctic ice coverage was at an average of 15.64 million square kilometres over the last 30 years. This year, it’s 1.1 million square kilometres smaller.
“One of the most important aspects of the people of our region is our subsistence lifestyle. It is enormously affected by climate change,” Lukin said. The migratory caribou herd on which the community of Kotzebue depends used to be the largest in Alaska, numbering around 450,000, but that number has dwindled to 280,000.
A transnational Arctic research project, Sustainable Futures North, is bringing community perspectives into the discussion. The principal investigator of the project is Dr. Philip Loring, an assistant professor in the School of Environment and Sustainability at the University of Saskatchewan.
“What can we do from positions as scientists and researchers, with access to things like climate data, with access to education specialists, what can we do to enable communities in the rural north to respond better to these challenges? That’s more the goal than testing for certain hypotheses,” Loring said.
The project will combine historical and climate data with local research to answer fundamental questions on environmental security.
Sea Ice Secure, the first in a series of four documentaries produced by the project, won an honourable mention at Greenpeace’s short film festival. It showcases how changes in climate and development are affecting the daily lives of hunters, fishers and gatherers in rural Alaskan villages.
“The north has been a changing landscape for millennia, but the challenge now is that people are much less mobile than they were, and their access to fish and game is more restrictive now. They can’t be as flexible because of a variety of different laws and land ownerships that limit their ability to be as flexible as they used to be in response to environmental change,” Loring said.
The project has been funded for three years by a grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation’s Arctic Science, Engineering, and Education for Sustainability program. It will examine Arctic communities from Baffin Island to Alaska, and highlight the social justice implications of climate change.