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Fierce Climate, Sacred Ground
With three roads and a population of just over 500 people,
Shishmaref, Alaska seems like an unlikely center of the climate
change debate. But the island, home to Iñupiaq Eskimos who still
live off subsistence harvesting, is falling into the sea, and
climate change is, at least in part, to blame. While countries
sputter and stall over taking environmental action, Shishmaref is
out of time.
Publications from the New York Times to
Esquire have covered this disappearing village, yet few
have taken the time to truly show the community and the two
millennia of traditions at risk. In Fierce Climate, Sacred
Ground , Elizabeth Marino brings Shishmaref into sharp focus as
a place where people in a close-knit, determined community are
confronting the realities of our changing planet every day. She
shows how physical dangers challenge lives, while the stress and
uncertainty challenge culture and identity. Marino also draws on
Shishmaref's experiences to show how disasters and the outcomes of
climate change often fall heaviest on those already burdened with
other social risks and often to communities who have contributed
least to the problem. Stirring and sobering, Fierce Climate,
Sacred Ground proves that the consequences of unchecked
climate change are anything but theoretical.
eBook
Integrating climate data and river modeling to reveal Chinook salmon habitat conditions in subarctic river basins
Climatic extremes can impact the productivity of aquatic species, affecting ecosystems and fishery‐dependent communities. Advances in climate products, such as gridded datasets and downscaled projections, may be useful for quantifying freshwater habitat conditions and predicting climate change effects on fish. However, limited guidance exists for selecting climate products to develop indicators of freshwater habitat conditions that influence fish population dynamics. Here, we develop an approach for identifying streamflow and stream temperature models to address this need. We evaluated skill in predicted versus observed streamflow and stream temperature, with predictions depending on different models and gridded climate data as inputs. The best performing models were used in a case study exploring habitat conditions influencing Chinook salmon in the Yukon and Kuskokwim River basins, two remote high‐latitude watersheds with few in situ habitat observations and recent salmon declines. Three modeled streamflow datasets had variable performance (median Nash–Sutcliffe efficiencies from 0.39 to 0.70). Three gridded temperature products differed in their ability to explain variation in weekly stream temperatures (median r2 from 0.42 to 0.76). We selected a single gridded air temperature dataset to compare two novel predictive stream temperature models, both of which had good accuracy (root mean squared error [RMSE] of 1.19 and 0.95°C). Stream temperature indicators calculated from modeled daily data, maximum temperatures during adult migration and cumulative temperatures during juvenile rearing, had high spatial correlation across tributaries within the Yukon and Kuskokwim River basins and showed significant warming over the past 40 years. Streamflow indicators calculated from modeled daily data, maximum flow during spawning and median flow during rearing, had few trends and were largely uncorrelated within the Yukon River basin and moderately correlated within the Kuskokwim River basin. Overall, we found that generic measures of model performance varied considerably, and it was important to consider the models best suited to our case study. For both streamflow and stream temperature, multiple high‐performing models allowed estimation of ecologically relevant conditions affecting Chinook salmon. The approach we used to estimate local‐scale habitat conditions has value to identify synchronous conditions that may influence multiple salmon populations under a changing subarctic climate.
Journal Article
On the Precipitation and Precipitation Change in Alaska
Alaska observes very large differences in precipitation throughout the state; southeast Alaska experiences consistently wet conditions, while northern Arctic Alaska observes very dry conditions. The maximum mean annual precipitation of 5727 mm is observed in the southeastern panhandle at Little Port Arthur, while the minimum of 92 mm occurs on the North Slope at Kuparuk. Besides explaining these large differences due to geographic and orographic location, we discuss the changes in precipitation with time. Analyzing the 18 first-order National Weather Service stations, we found that the total average precipitation in the state increased by 17% over the last 67 years. The observed changes in precipitation are furthermore discussed as a function of the observed temperature increase of 2.1 °C, the mean temperature change of the 18 stations over the same period. This observed warming of Alaska is about three times the magnitude of the mean global warming and allows the air to hold more water vapor. Furthermore, we discuss the effect of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), which has a strong influence on both the temperature and precipitation in Alaska.
Journal Article
Geology of Southeast Alaska
The most powerful forces on earth have shaped the landscape of
Southeast Alaska. Scientists and visitors from around the world
trek north to experience wild rivers, powerful glaciers, and
breathtaking mountain peaks. Now, for the first time, a handy guide
to the region is available. Complete with color illustrations
revealing millions of years of geological history and in-depth
descriptions of Sitka, Juneau, and Glacier Bay, Geology of
Southeast Alaska is essential reading for anyone fascinated by
rock and ice in motion. Written by a geologist with over
twenty-five years of experience in the north, Geology of
Southeast Alaska will entertain and inform with abundant
photographs and detailed drawings. Whether you want to understand
the forces that shaped the state of Alaska, or you want to learn
the basics of glacial movement, this compact, authoritative book is
for you.
eBook
Finding Mars
Finding Mars is an interwoven tale of science, travel, and
adventure, as science writer Ned Rozell accompanies permafrost
researcher-and inveterate wanderer-Kenji Yoshikawa on a 750-mile
trek by snowmobile through the Alaska wilderness. Along the way,
Rozell learns about Yoshikawa's fascinating life, from his boyhood
in Tokyo to the youthful wanderlust that led him to push a wheeled
cart across the Sahara, ski to the South Pole, and take a sailboat
into the frozen reaches of the Arctic Ocean, spending a winter
frozen in the ice near Barrow. It's an always on-the-move account
of a man driven not just by the desire to fill in the blank spots
on a map, but also to learn everything he can about them-and a
ringing testament to the power of science, enthusiasm, and
individual inspiration.
eBook
The Wisdom of Crowds: Predicting a Weather and Climate-Related Event
Environmental uncertainty is at the core of much of human activity, ranging from daily decisions by individuals to long-term policy planning by governments. Yet, there is little quantitative evidence on the ability of non-expert individuals or populations to forecast climate-related events. Here we report on data from a 90-year old prediction game on a climate related event in Alaska: the Nenana Ice Classic (NIC). Participants in this contest guess to the nearest minute when the ice covering the Tanana River will break, signaling the start of spring. Previous research indicates a strong correlation between the ice breakup dates and regional weather conditions. We study betting decisions between 1955 and 2009. We find the betting distribution closely predicts the outcome of the contest. We also find a significant correlation between regional temperatures as well as past ice breakups and betting behavior, suggesting that participants incorporate both climate and historical information into their decision-making.
Journal Article
Ellavut / Our Yup'ik World and Weather
Ellavut / Our Yup'ik World and Weather is a result of nearly ten years of gatherings among Yup'ik elders to document the qanruyutet (words of wisdom) that guide their interactions with the environment. In an effort to educate their own young people as well as people outside the community, the elders discussed the practical skills necessary to live in a harsh environment, stressing the ethical and philosophical aspects of the Yup'ik relationship with the land, ocean, snow, weather, and environmental change, among many other elements of the natural world.
At every gathering, at least one elder repeated the Yup'ik adage, \"The world is changing following its people.\" The Yup'ik see environmental change as directly related not just to human actions, such as overfishing or burning fossil fuels, but also to human interactions. The elders encourage young people to learn traditional rules and proper behavior--to act with compassion and restraint--in order to reverse negative impacts on their world. They speak not only to educate young people on the practical skills they need to survive but also on the knowing and responsive nature of the world in which they live.
eBook
Regional and global projections of twenty-first century glacier mass changes in response to climate scenarios from global climate models
A large component of present-day sea-level rise is due to the melt of glaciers other than the ice sheets. Recent projections of their contribution to global sea-level rise for the twenty-first century range between 70 and 180 mm, but bear significant uncertainty due to poor glacier inventory and lack of hypsometric data. Here, we aim to update the projections and improve quantification of their uncertainties by using a recently released global inventory containing outlines of almost every glacier in the world. We model volume change for each glacier in response to transient spatially-differentiated temperature and precipitation projections from 14 global climate models with two emission scenarios (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5) prepared for the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The multi-model mean suggests sea-level rise of 155 ± 41 mm (RCP4.5) and 216 ± 44 mm (RCP8.5) over the period 2006–2100, reducing the current global glacier volume by 29 or 41 %. The largest contributors to projected global volume loss are the glaciers in the Canadian and Russian Arctic, Alaska, and glaciers peripheral to the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets. Although small contributors to global volume loss, glaciers in Central Europe, low-latitude South America, Caucasus, North Asia, and Western Canada and US are projected to lose more than 80 % of their volume by 2100. However, large uncertainties in the projections remain due to the choice of global climate model and emission scenario. With a series of sensitivity tests we quantify additional uncertainties due to the calibration of our model with sparsely observed glacier mass changes. This gives an upper bound for the uncertainty range of ±84 mm sea-level rise by 2100 for each projection.
Journal Article