http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=655&ncid=655&e=1&
u=/oneworld/20031007/wl_oneworld/4536697661065527760
Tue Oct 7, 2003, 7:53
AM ET
World - OneWorld.net
Alaska's People, Polar Bears, Economy
Feel Heat of Global Warming
Christian Science Monitor
HOMER, ALASKA, Oct.
7 (CSM) -- Overlooking the snowcapped mountains
and tidewater glaciers around Kachemak Bay, this hamlet of fishermen,
artists, and tourists seems the picture of Alaskan charm. But
beneath
the scene of plenty is a landscape parched.
Three hot summers have
dried local wells and forced the native village
of Nanwalek to shuttle in bottled water and ration it. Swaths
of spruce
forest around Homer and the Kenai Peninsula are brown because
of an
unprecedented beetle infestation, linked to the warming climate.
And snow levels have diminished steadily since 1938.
While much of the world
knows global warming as a phrase, Alaska's
warming climate is far more palpable. Summers here, as elsewhere,
have been warmer and longer; winters are more temperate, with
average temperatures climbing eight degrees Fahrenheit in three
decades. Alaskans have mowed their lawns in November, golfed in
February, and basked in record in record temperatures all summer.
"The most positive
comments come from the more longtime Alaskans.
They say, 'Heck, we've been through lots of tough winters.
We deserve an easy one,'" says Jackie Purcell, meteorologist
and weather anchor for Anchorage TV station KTUU.
Computer simulations
of climate change have long suggested
global warming's effects would be most pronounced at the poles.
Researchers have tried to gauge the impact of the climate system's
natural variations, and see if they can account for change over
the last few decades.
However, most of the
warming in Alaska is not due to these natural
variations, says Michael Wallace, an atmospheric scientist at
the
University of Washington. Environmental changes in Alaska "suggest
that global warming is playing a role."
The world should take
note, adds Gunter Weller, executive director
of the University of Alaska's Center for Global Change and Arctic
System Research: "We are the canary in the mine shaft."
Indeed,
melting Alaskan glaciers are shedding twice as much ice as in
previous decades. And the Arctic ice pack has thinned by 40 percent
since the 1960s.
"There's no greater
threat to Alaska's ecosystem and indigenous
cultures than global warming. Period," says Deborah Williams,
executive director of the Alaska Conservation Foundation.
Global warming is believed
to be the result of rising amounts
of carbon dioxide and other "greenhouse" gases in the
atmosphere.
These trap the earth's radiant heat, creating a greenhouse effect.
The effects are more
dramatic here because of the
temperature-sensitive overlay of permafrost and glaciers.
Thawing permafrost plagues highway crews and operators of
the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, which depends on supports
to avoid sinking into the tundra. The oil industry has
lost half its exploration season to the warmth, which
keeps the tundra soft--and unable to support heavy vehicles
or drilling equipment--for longer stretches of time.
Large sections of northern
forests are collapsing into
swamps of melting permafrost; sections of shoreline on
the Arctic Coast have thawed, making them vulnerable
to storms; and the Arctic's largest ice shelf, solid
for 3,000 years, broke up last month due to warmer
temperatures - though scientists were hesitant to
blame global warming specifically.
"It's more than
just mechanical erosion. It's melting of
the soil. You can get big collapses of beach bluffs," says
Craig George, a biologist with the North Slope Borough.
In rural villages,
too, thawing permafrost wreaks havoc:
Two Inupiat Eskimo villages on the northwestern coastline,
Shishmaref and Kivalina, have lost so much ground they're
in danger of washing into the sea. The villages are planning
to relocate, at a cost of hundreds of millions.
Animals, meanwhile,
are dealing with the retreating ice pack.
With less time to escape from land in the spring, they sometimes
wind up stranded on the outskirts of towns like Barrow. Polar
bears have grown thinner in recent years, and some have to be
killed as more migrate south. And the warming may have dire
consequences for salmon in the Yukon River, the major food
and income source for indigenous people along the 2,300-mile
waterway.
Rivers have heated
five degrees in 20 years, making mid-summer
temperatures nearly lethal for salmon, says Richard Kocan of
the University of Washington's School of Aquatic and Fisheries
Science. With warmth comes increased infection by a parasite
that seems to wipe out their reproductive abilities. And
because the taste and texture of the meat has changed,
fishermen harvest 150 salmon to get 100 usable fish,
straining runs, Dr. Kocan says: "They don't feel right.
They don't taste right. You can't sell them."
The economic toll alone,
say some, should focus attention
on Alaska. Disruptions to oil and fishing industries would
damage the nation's economy, Dr. Weller points out, and the
cost of rebuilding roads, airports and entire towns is
staggering. Still, he says, "It hasn't been enough to
convince the political system that something has to be done."
The state has launched
a study to reevaluate regulations
on tundra travel, which oil companies claim are too strict.
And Gov. Frank Murkowski (R) is pushing for a permanent
gravel highway on the western North Slope to take the place
of the temporary ice roads that the oil industry has touted
as environmentally friendly.
"You and I know
that ice roads work, but it seems like winters
are coming later and breaking earlier," the governor told
a
pro-development group earlier this year.
But a North Slope road
is little consolation for regular
motorists, who may soon face new woes: frequent floods on
major highways over the next 10 to 15 years as newly thawed
soil clogs bridges and culverts, scientists say. The problem
is most pronounced in the interior, where highways run through
discontinuous permafrost and along shrinking glaciers.
State officials have
warned that warmer winters will increase
freeze-thaw cycles for mountain snowpack. That means Alaskans
should expect more frequent avalanches, like the deadly snow
slide that rumbled into a neighborhood in the Prince William
Sound town of Cordova in 2000.
For native people--17
percent of Alaskans--who depend on
berries and wild foods, global warming is a particular
threat. The natural world "is our classroom," says Sterling
Gologergen, an environmental specialist with the Nome-based
Norton Sound Health Corp. But in her region of Alaska,
traditional whaling schedules have been disrupted by an
earlier bowhead migration. Walrus hunters must travel
farther, at greater risk, to find animals at the ice edge.
Beavers, previously unknown in the region, are showing up
in local streams, and their dams could interfere with water
quality and fish runs.
Drastic changes in
vegetation mean her mother in Savoonga,
on the Bering Sea island of Gambell, must walk farther to
find the plants she gathers in summer. The result could be
a shift in diet--and intangible losses. "I have a grandson
and he's 4," says Ms. Gologergen. "What if I don't get
to
show or do things I did with my kids?"
###
