Yvon Csonka, a professor at the University of Greenland and president of the International Arctic Social Sciences Association (IASSA), gave one of the Plenary Keynote talks on “Polar Societies and Cultures in a Changing World.” Among the variety of challenges facing polar societies mentioned by Csonka, is the melting permafrost and its effect on people who have been surviving in the Arctic for millennia. Csonka described small communities that have already been forced to leave their villages due to erosion caused by melting permafrost and because of a lack of sea-ice in summer. Csonka said currently these moves “Are not common, but will happen more and more in the future.”

Later, I pulled Csonka aside for a few minutes, and he elaborated on how climate change will affect people’s access to resources, especially animals like seals and caribou, which local people depend on for sustenance. Reductions in sea-ice have been devastating to seal populations since they require the ice for both birthing and weaning. When mother seals can’t find sea-ice, they are forced to give birth in the water and the pups drown. Even if they find ice to birth on, the sea-ice has been breaking up too fast and the pups don’t have time to wean before they are subjected to the freezing waters.

A young spotted seal.

The changing climate has caused serious problems for Caribou populations who require specific snow thickness and type of snow. “When the snow layer is thin and dry, Caribou can scrape at the snow to get to the lichen underneath,” Csonka said. “But, with increased precipitation-from climate change-there is an increase in snow and its wetter creating deadly conditions for caribou since the upper crust becomes too thick for the caribou to break through.” Despite these drastic problems, Csonka is hopeful that Arctic communities will successfully adapt to climate change, since they have been doing so for millennia.

Caribou on the tundra.

Stay tuned in the next few days to learn in more detail just how people, animals and the environment will cope and adapt in a changing polar environment.

Permafrost gone soft

“Not only has climate change begun, but we are seeing a significant impact,” said Wayne Pollard from McGill University in Montreal, Canada in his plenary talk on “The effects of climate change on polar landscapes.” His talked focused on the Arctic permafrost, which refers to ground that has remained frozen for a minimum of 2 years and as many as several thousands of years. More than 25% of the Earth’s land surface is considered permafrost, comprising 50% of Canada, 80% of Alaska, and 60% of Russia. Pollard reported that permafrost regions are one of the most sensitive and severely affected by climate change. He further stated, “40-60% of the permafrost could disappear in the next 100 years.”

Melting permafrost from above.

The melting permafrost causes a host of problems for local Arctic populations and the environment. As a solid landmass, permafrost provides stability to Arctic slopes. In contrast, “when the permafrost melts, it turns into a slurry of liquefied mud, referred to as a thermokarst. The result is thaw lakes and tundra ponds and frozen peat turning into vast wetlands,” says Pollard. Thawing permafrost combined with reduced sea-ice and increased storm activity will collectively increase the erosion of Arctic coastlines, directly impacting coastal communities, culturally important sites and industrial facilities.

In Shishmaref, Alaska, melting permafrost has contributed to major erosion, forcing residents to consider moving the entire village to a new location.

Most alarming is the global effects of melting permafrost. Scientists have reported that Arctic soils hold 30 percent or more of all the carbon stored in soils worldwide. When it is frozen, the permafrost acts as a sink for carbon dioxide and methane, two of the major greenhouse gases. Pollard explained that now as it melts, it will become a source. Since the conference, even more alarming results have been reported. Edward A.G. Schuur of the University of Florida and an international group of coauthors has shown that the melting permafrost is a far larger source for greenhouse gases than previously believed and will indeed further contribute to global warming. See the September, 2008 press release at
http://www.aibs.org/bioscience-press-releases/080828_thawing_permafrost_likely_to_boost_global_warming.html

The summer tundra.

COLVILLE RIVER, ALASKA– Days drift by on the river. The wind of the previous entry indeed subsided that evening, and we paddled from 11 PM to 5 AM, stopping for an hour to gape in awe at a massive exposure of permafrost (frozen ground) towering above the river. It was the most massive body of permafrost any of us had ever seen. There is some orange coloring to the photo from the 3 AM sunset colors on the other side of the sky, and you can imagine how active the erosion is when the sun hits the ice.

This location has exotic plants, ice formations, and soil erosional features. Ben even pointed out the possibility that plants at the foot of the wall germinated from seeds of extinct plant species that had been frozen in the wall for thousands of years before eroding into a fertile soil. There were indeed places where we observed ancient green plant material frozen into the wall.

Massive ice exposure adjacent to the river, 3 AM. The vertical walls of frozen ice and silt are 10 to 12 m high throughout most of the exposure. Ben is standing in front of the wall near the right edge of the bluff.

Several long river days later, we are nearing our other sampling sites. The long trip down was punctuated by frequent cliffs hosting rough-legged hawks and peregrine falcons. Sandbars came and went endlessly, and much time was wasted on bad 80’s songs and every imaginable food fantasy. The week-long transit from the upper sites constituted the bulk of the adventure portion of this trip, and we will soon be camped at our final site and returning our focus to the science of shrub expansion.

Often, soon after we dig a soil pit, it fills with water from the surrounding saturated tundra.

Watch this video, to see how we remedied the problem on a recent snowy and blustery day.

Ken Fortino stands atop the ice feature in his bug jacket. Ken and Dendy Lofton first noticed exposed ice beneath the tundra in late-June.

Two weeks later, even more ice is visible as the tundra thaws and sloughs away from the ice mound.

Our first question was, ‘How old is this ice? Has it existed since the last glacial maximum (~25,000 years ago)?’ This was the late-Pleistocene epoch – the most recent Ice Age when large mammals, such as woolly mammoths, scimitar cats and the giant beaver, roamed in the far north.

To find out, I contacted Dr. Skip Walker at UAF’s Alaska Geobotany Center. Dr. Walker recently lead a field trip in northern Alaska for the 9th International Permafrost Conference that was held in Fairbanks in late June.

The Arctic is underlain by continuous permafrost. These soils remain perennially frozen. However the upper-most layer of the tundra, or the active layer, thaws each summer. Plant roots penetrate the active layer and a suite of insects, fungi and microbes thrive within these annually thawed soils. The depth of the active layer varies across the tundra landscape. At Toolik Lake, the average maximum thaw depth in early August is about 75 cm.

An important landscape feature that influences the depth of the active layer is the overlying plant community. For example, in the tundra within the vicinity of the field station those areas with peat moss (Sphagnum spp.) will have a shallow depth of thaw. The peat moss insulates the permafrost below and these soils remain largely frozen. For this reason, a simple disturbance of the tundra vegetation can significantly affect the permafrost beneath.

When the permafrost thaws extensively, large depressions can occur in the tundra. We call this phenomenon “thermokarst.” Thermokarst originates when the ice-rich permafrost thaws and the ground beneath collapses. On slopes and riverbanks, thermokarst results in chunks of tundra sloughing into the valleys below.

Last week, we took advantage of a snow day to visit the ice feature again. The site is accessible via the maintenance road that parallels the Trans-Alaska Pipeline north to the oil fields at Prudhoe Bay on the Arctic Ocean.

The tundra continues to slough and even more of the ice feature is exposed.

I sent Dr. Walker these photos and identified the ice as, ‘a curious ground ice feature.’

His e-mail response began, “Oh, that’s a CGIF.”

I panicked and thought to myself, “What’s a CGIF? Is that an acronym I should be familiar with?”

I re-read my initial inquiry and realized CGIF was an acronym for our original terminology; ‘curious ground ice feature.’

We learned from Dr. Walker that this ice is not old. It likely formed over the previous year. Dr. Walker hypothesized that these features form when water flows between the peat moss and the mineral soil. This water then freezes and the tundra heaves upward during the winter months. Apparently, these types of ice features are quite common in the northern foothills of the Brooks Range.

The ‘CGIF.’

Although CGIFs are common, they do not have a formal name. Collectively, the field trip participants called them, ‘ice-cored mounds.’

I must admit, I was disappointed that the ice was so young. I yearn for a glimpse of the last Ice Age. While I may never see a live giant beaver, it is still possible that I will one day see, touch and taste ice that formed during the late Pleistocene.

Yup, I did indeed eat an ice-cube size chunk of the CGIF.

A polar grass (Arctagrostis latifolia) inflorescence bends under the weight of our recent July snowfall.

The Barrow Biocomplexity Environmental Observatory Hydrology Project in late summer and located near where the edge of where the Chuckchi and Beaufort Seas meet.

As I looked out the window of the Alaska Airlines plane minutes before landing, I couldn’t believe the amount of snow on the ground. It seemed that someone had forgotten to tell Barrow that winter is over. There was snow everywhere, and lots of it. From the look on the faces of most of the people getting off the plane with me, others must have been thinking the same thing. Outside in Barrow the ambient air temperature was 12°F so I thought that surely not much could be going on around town. Forget the coke machine– where can I get a hot chocolate and a fireplace?

Coping with Cold

Man it was cold. Or so it seemed to me…but apparently not to anyone else that lives here. On the ride through this Iñupiaq Eskimo village to my final destination– a research facility just outside of Barrow that was once a naval base– it was apparent that to the Iñupiaq, the native people of the Alaskan Arctic, cold days are as common as droughts are in the Western United States.

The NARL (Naval Arctic Research Laboratory) sleeping accommodations set up for scientists and support personnel.

As we passed a school playground, kids wearing parkas screamed at the top of their lungs and shrieked with laughter while jetting down a slide. The cold temperature seemed to make little difference to them. Their enthusiasm and energy captivated me until I noticed some movement nearby. We stopped to get out and take a look. It was a large pen with a dozen or so white dogs. It turned out to be the home of a dog sled team. As I watched them watch me, it dawned on me that the dogs and the kids were oblivious to each other. Now I ask you: When was the last time you saw kids and a pack of dogs not going crazy trying to get each other’s attention?

A dog sled team relaxes in their compound while ignoring the kids playing in the playground behind them.

One thing one quickly notices soon after arriving in Barrow is that people there wear parkas like people in cities carry cell phones. Even during the summer or when they are inside, people wear them. (That should give you an idea of just how warm Barrow gets.) The weather can be deceiving. The sun may be out 24 hours a day, seven days a week and it may seem warm outside, but if you stay out long enough, sooner or later the cold starts moving in. Mr. Cold meet Mr. Shiver.

An Iñupiaq boy out riding his bike with the temperature at 12°F.

Iñupiaq elders enjoy watching traditional dancing during the Nanulateq festival that celebrates successful whale hunts.

Local children play with sleds in the snow.

An interesting thing about all these parkas is that a good majority of them are just plain white. They have no other markings on them. No patches. No slogans. No pictures. The fur ruff on the hood that keeps snow away from the face and from getting inside the sleeves is usually dark, but otherwise the parkas are just white. You wonder why no one wears those popular bright parkas made with a variety of colors that one sees on ski slopes? It all makes sense after you find out why. (I will explain later.)

Snowies

The factors distinguishing Barrow from other places are not limited to just clothing or people, though– they continue to other topics. Even Barrow’s traditional name of Ukpeagvik stands apart from the others. It translates from Iñupiaq into “Place where snowy owls are hunted.”

That was then. Now they are protected with conservation measures practiced and enforced to ensure their survival. Snowy owls are beautiful, majestic predator birds that construct nests in the late May and early June. The males are typically all white, with the females and younger ones having darker feathers. Once you get away from bustling Barrow, it is not uncommon to see up to a half dozen Snowy nests scattered amongst the tundra at one time.

A female Snowy Owl watches for her next meal.

A Snowy out on the tundra.

Seven snowy owl chicks.

Houses and Settling

Look around and you will see even more things differentiating Barrow from other places. How residents build their homes is yet another illustration. For thousands of years the Inuit were able to cope with living in the Arctic by making mounds into the ground. This provided insulation that protected them from the brutal wind-chills and extreme cold temperatures. Although they now live in typical modern-style homes, they still have to face some of the same challenges that their ancestors did.

Now the Iñupiaq build their homes on wooden pilings just like you would see on beach homes along the coastlines of the United Sates. But unlike those, which are designed to withstand rising sea waters and storm surges, the ones on the North Slope are built that way because of the type of ground they have to deal with. In the Arctic, the ground cover that thaws and re-freezes with the seasons is called the active layer. In Barrow the depth of this layer averages about 30 centimeters. After that is the permafrost which is ground that stays frozen for at least two straight years. The permafrost in Barrow is over 900 feet thick. The holes for setting the pilings have to be augured deep enough so that they do not heave as they settle into the ground and the active layer thaws. For this reason most pilings are set between 5 and 10 feet. The pilings are left alone for a year or two, and then are cut so that they are all on the same level. A house is then built or placed on them.

Wooden pilings are set into the ground for a couple of years to allow them to settle into the tundra.

Life at the ‘Office’

Going to work in the morning in Barrow is just another example of how different it is from other places of the United States. For me it’s assisting the scientists on the research project that I am involved in. During the cold months, that means having to put on layer after layer of cold weather clothing. You have so many clothes on that if you fall over while tying your shoes you may not ever get up.

The daily ritual for getting ready continues with getting a snow machine to drive to the research site. Then warming it up so it doesn’t conk out while you are driving in the middle of nowhere. Then checking the oil, the fuel, the body, and listening to the sound of the engine. Two thumbs up and now you’re ready to take a shotgun or a ‘bear guard’ guide with you.

A ‘bear guard’ guide stands watch while a scientist conducts his research.

Either one come in handy when encountering a dangerous animal at the wrong time and place. In the winter and the spring it seems to be the polar bear that everyone watches out for. In the summer the occasional grizzly bear visits the area. In between are the rabid foxes.

The normal work day doesn’t end there. Whiteouts and blizzards occur as frequently as bad hair days. Hypothermia lurks nearby if you’re not careful. When the day is over, the night begins. In the winter the day never starts because it is night most of the time and dusk when it isn’t. In the summer it is so bright that you can burn your eyes by not wearing sunglasses at midnight.

Polar bear tracks remind you of the dangers of working outside.

The Top of the World

Barrow truly is a remarkable place. No one is there by accident. Everyone who is not from there goes there for a reason. You don’t just pass through, run out of gas and find yourself stuck. It is far from anywhere else and as high north as you can go on land in the United States before hitting water. Like a lot of remote Alaska, there are no roads that connect it to anywhere else. Travel is year-round and only by plane although in the summer when the frozen sea has broken up and gone out to the open ocean, a barge brings supplies to the town. Schools have no temperature cut-off so they rarely close because of cold weather.

For a town with no movie theatres, no bowling alleys, no fast food chains, no mall, and no parks, people in Barrow definitely don’t let the weather and lack of so-called ‘quality of life services’ keep them from going outside and doing something. Even the dogs seem to relish the cold temperatures. Everything seems to point to one thing: Welcome to Barrow.

A Siberian husky takes watching the house to a new level.

Carbon dioxide is a colorless, odorless gas that makes up .04 percent of the earth’s atmosphere. It’s released by the breakdown of organic materials, by animals when they respire, and by the burning of fossil fuels. Carbon dioxide isn’t toxic—after all, we exhale it with every breath and use it to make our drinks fizzy. However, carbon dioxide is considered a pollutant because, as a greenhouse (heat-trapping) gas, it’s a significant contributor to global warming.

Factory pollution is but one of the ways industrial society has contributed to climate change.

In the last 150 years, carbon dioxide from factories, power plants, and fuel-burning vehicles has boosted natural levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Data from ice cores taken in Antarctica show that carbon dioxide in our atmosphere has increased 36 percent from preindustrial levels. Carbon dioxide raises global temperature by trapping heat that would otherwise escape directly into space.

Continually climbing levels of carbon dioxide are of special concern at the poles for two reasons. First, polar regions are especially sensitive to global warming. Already, temperature increases measured at the poles are twice those measured at the equator. (See Climate Change.) Also, warming temperatures in the Arctic may release even more carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases such as methane, by melting frozen soil called permafrost. (See Tundra and Permafrost.) In this way, thawing at the poles may result in a positive feedback loop, in which thawing causes faster warming, in turn causing more thawing.

The Atmospheric Research Observatory at the South Pole is part of a world-wide campaign by NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) to collect long-term measurements on compounds in the atmosphere. In addition to this South Pole station, NOAA maintains climate observatories in Samoa, Mauna Loa, Hawaii, and Barrow, Alaska.

Predicting the outcome of effects such as thawing of permafrost requires a thorough understanding of the carbon cycle, a collection of processes whereby carbon (in various forms) shifts between the atmosphere, the ocean, the land, and living things. The carbon cycle is complex, however, and not yet fully understood in a warming world.

To keep track of carbon dioxide and study global warming, scientists use gas detectors to continually monitor global atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. Measurements must be made far from sources that might skew the reading, so the monitoring stations are located in remote locations, including the South Pole and Barrow, Alaska. In time, these measurements may help scientists better understand the carbon cycle and predict future climate change.

Canada glacier, Antarctica. Glaciers are slow-moving rivers of ice, fed by compacted snow.

Fast ice is a type of sea ice that isn’t really speedy—it’s “stuck fast” to land.

Pancake ice forms when flat chunks of ice are battered into rounds by wave action.

Sea ice breaks up into brash ice, ice chunks less than 6.5 feet (2 m) across.

For those who think ice is all the same: think again. At the poles, ice takes many forms—from shiny “grease ice” on the sea surface to mile-thick ice sheets that cover entire continents.

The many varieties of ice found at the poles arise from the various environments in which they form: on land, at sea, and at the boundary between the two.

On land, snow falls and hardly ever melts. Year after year, snowfall piles up and compacts into ice that flows like a slow-motion river—a glacier. When glaciers are bounded by mountains, they carve deep U-shaped valleys on their way to the sea, valleys that remain long after the glacier has melted away; Yosemite Valley in California is an example.

When glaciers stretch out across flat land or over an entire continent, they’re called ice sheets; both Greenland and Antarctica are almost entirely covered by ice sheets that are miles thick. Within ice sheets, faster-moving zones called ice streams occur over water or smooth ground. Smaller ice sheets that sit on mountaintops are called ice caps.

When ice from glaciers and ice sheets reaches the sea, it can spread across the water as a slab called an ice shelf. Ice shelves can extend for miles—even hundreds of miles—over the ocean. Chunks of ice can break off from an ice shelf, forming floating icebergs.

In Arctic climates, even land that seems ice-free may hide a layer of ice beneath its surface. Permafrost is a layer of soil that remains frozen year round.

Sea ice forms when temperatures dip so low that the ocean itself begins to freeze. Sea ice can be free-floating drift ice, or fast ice that is “stuck fast” to land. When sea ice first begins to form, it appears as fine bits of frazil ice, then thickens into soupy grease ice, and then sometimes forms pancake ice, pieces of drift ice that have been battered into rounds by waves and collisions. When pieces of drift ice get packed together, they become pack ice. An ice floe is a solid chunk of drift ice up to 6 miles (9.7 km) across; if it grows larger than this, it’s called an ice field.

A jackhammer is needed to dig deeper into the permafrost.

The summer tundra.

In Shishmaref, Alaska, melting permafrost has contributed to major erosion, forcing residents to consider moving the entire village to a new location.

Melting permafrost from above.

If you want to dig a ditch in the Arctic, you’d better bring more than a shovel. Even at the height of summer, you may only be able to dig down a foot or two before you hit solid, frozen soil known as permafrost. Permafrost is found in places where the average annual temperature is below about 23°F (- 5° C), including most of the Arctic and all of Antarctica.

Land with underlying permafrost is called tundra. The arctic tundra is stark and treeless. Roots can’t penetrate the frozen soil, so only moss, lichen, and low shrubs can grow there. In summer, the topmost layer of the permafrost melts, leaving behind soggy ground, marshes, bogs, and lakes.

Buildings constructed on permafrost have a notorious tendency to sink, crumble, or tilt like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. That’s because heat and pressure from overlying structures can cause the permafrost just under the structure to melt, turning formerly firm soil into mush.

In recent years, however, permafrost has been melting en masse, thanks to increases in global average temperatures. The zones where permafrost can be found year-round are creeping northward, and permafrost coverage, currently 20 percent of the earth’s land surface, is predicted to shrink drastically in coming years.

A mass-melting of permafrost would contribute significantly to rising sea levels. It might also accelerate global warming by releasing greenhouse gases into the air. Rich in organic material, the soil in the Arctic tundra will begin to decay if it thaws. As it breaks down, it will release large amounts of methane and carbon dioxide—two greenhouse gases—into the atmosphere. Thawing permafrost could thereby result in a positive feedback loop in which thawing causes faster warming, resulting in more thawing.

Climate change is a topic of worldwide concern, but it’s of particular concern at the poles. That’s because the impacts of global warming are felt first and most severely at higher latitudes. Given this, it’s not surprising that the poles are also where much of the research concerning global climate change is taking place—or that climate change was the central focus of the 2007–2008 International Polar Year.

Melting iceberg, Antarctica.

The Arctic has experienced warming at twice the rate of the rest of the world. Winter temperatures have increased by up to 8° F (4° C). Snow and sea ice coverage have shrunk by 10 percent and 20 percent respectively in the last 30 years. The summer of 2007 saw an unprecedented mass-melting of one million additional square miles of sea ice, an area larger than Texas and Alaska combined. Glaciers are in retreat throughout the Arctic, and the ice sheets that cover Greenland and Antarctica are melting at record rates.

Climate change hits the poles hardest for a variety of reasons: Melting of highly reflective sea ice means increased absorption of the sun’s rays by the dark ocean. A shallower atmosphere at the poles means that less heat is needed to increase air temperatures near the surface. And in contrast to equatorial areas, cooling by evaporation is minimal at the chilly poles.

Collecting an ice core. Look closely to see the thousands of ancient air bubbles trapped inside the ice.

To understand how our climate is changing, scientists must delve back in time. Drilling cores of ancient ice and sediment lets researchers chart past changes in climate over millions of years, using trapped air bubbles, residues of living things, and other environmental clues.

Researchers also monitor current atmospheric and environmental conditions. They track patterns in populations of wildlife from krill to whales, measure the thickness of sea ice in the ocean and the extent of glaciers on land, and detect changing concentrations of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane in the air.

Data from the past and present helps researchers develop computer models of our climate, models that we can use to envision likely future scenarios. An important aspect of this study is understanding feedback effects: How will temperature-driven changes in the Arctic—such as melting sea ice or thawing permafrost—affect future climate change?

A house in Shishmaref, Alaska, undermined by erosion, finally falls over. As permafrost melts and warmer temperatures keep sea ice from forming until late in the year, erosion has increased, forcing Shishmaref residents to consider relocating the entire village.