Climatic Change and Cultural Observations

Climatic Change and Cultural Observations

I hope that most people realize how real climate change is by now. There is indisputable evidence that our weather (and climate) are changing.  The reason is not clear.  Nor is the decision of whether it is good or bad or how much things will change. But it is changing, and it is important that our students and community members learn about climate change and how it will potentially affect their lives in the future.

 I do dog agility...some of my lab's best buddies are corgies!

Explain

Human activity, such as migration, is connected to climate change.  Whether global warming or global cooling, it will affect how we live and where we live.  Although we don’t really think about human migration in the same sense as when the Americas and other parts of the world were populated, climate change will cause human migration in this modern age.  We have built our cities near the oceans, at the base of glaciers, and on permafrost.  As the climate warms, people are going to have to move to “higher ground” when the ocean level rises and as glaciers and permafrost melt.  Ocean flood level maps is a neat interactive that shows the changes on coastlines around the world with increases in sea level.  I will use this resource with students!

I really enjoyed the video  Inuit Observations of Climate Change.  It is appropriate that scientists are looking to the Inuit for data about climate change.  Although they may not have written records, they possess a long and accurate history of the ecosystem over a period of thousands of years.  Without the indigenous knowledge, we do not have a baseline for comparison. 

A really good book I recently read is The Whale and the Supercomputer: On the Northern Front of Climate Change by Charles Wohlforth.  Charles writes about how climate change is affecting the indigenous people of northern Alaska and how their lifestyle is already starting to change.  He provides some very concrete examples of how Western scientists are looking at indigenous knowledge and applying it to the future. 

Jack Lane, Pt. Hope resident  March 2010

 

(Photo by K. East)

I had the opportunity to travel to Pt. Hope last spring, and was there when the ice broke up and the bowhead whaling season began.*  It was interesting to talk to the people about whaling.   One hunter told me, “The ice broke early last year, too, and we weren’t ready for it.  This year we are ready!” 

*Unfortunately, a whale was not landed until after I left. 

This week I learned about microbes that live and continue decomposition at temperatures below freezing.  I knew they could survive the low temperatures, but not that they keep working!  The consequences are enormous for places like Alaska.  This discovery has implications when looking for extremophiles in places as remote as Mars.  If the bacteria can live in sub-zero temperatures here, they could be also living on Mars!

Science Blog by Ethan Siegel

“We are all stardust” I tell my students in astronomy.  It is amazing that we are made of the same stuff as stars and that we may have been part of a supernova billions of years ago.  And that the Earth, residing in the Goldilocks Zone around our star, evolved an atmosphere suited for human life. 

The Jewel Box taken by the Hubble Telescope

Extend

Where can I use all this information?  Pretty much in any area I teach: astronomy, chemistry, physics, biology, earth science, general science, weather, and community events!  The question might be where I can’t use this information!  I think just the fact that it applies to almost any part of science is testimony of how interconnected global climate change is to everything and everyone. 

How to explain global warming to your relatives in the Lower 48

Evaluate

The material presented in this module is very relevant to each and every one of us.  The material spans an enormous span: from the beginning of the Earth to now.  When the earth was first formed, we would hardly recognize it; nor would we be able to inhabit it.  The earth changed slowly but dramatically over millions of years, and it continues to change.  Perhaps the day will come when it will have changed so much that once again it will become uninhabitable for humans.  In the mean time, we need to continue to try and understand what changes are taking place, and how humans are contributing to the changes.  We have the power to control our actions, such as using energy that adds carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.  Some of the changes may be beyond our control, such as changes in solar radiation as the sun goes through its cyclic life.  It is just as important to understand those changes so that we can adapt to our ever-changing environment.

Pt. Barrow, Alaska  March 2009 (photo by K. East)

The people who are most intimately connected with the land need to be the most aware.  That includes the Alaska Native populations that depend on subsistence for their cultural and their very survival.  As changes occur, some of their culture may be lost, and at the least some of it will change.

Three Colleagues

Janet Reed http://culturalconnectionsinearthscience.blogspot.com/

Thanks for sharing the NASA Interactive Quizzes http://climate.nasa.gov/quizzes/index.cfm

– great resource that I will use!  I also like your comments about teachers taking the quizzes and getting the wrong answers.  Humbles us now and then to be the student and learn what we don’t know!

Amy Peeke http://amysexplorealaskablog.blogspot.com/

I, too, really enjoyed “Inuit Observations of Climate Change”  and learning about how the Inuit women can tell about the condition of the environment by the fat layer in the animals.  Growing up and living in an urban area (well, urban for Alaska), that would never have occurred to me.  What a great illustration of how Native knowledge is just as scientific and valid as Western knowledge.

Alison Larson http://explorealaskawithalison.blogspot.com/

I’m not for sure about this, but my understanding is that the carbon dioxide is given off by the microbes (bacteria, fungi and others) as they decompose the plant or animal.  Swamp gas is mostly methane, another green house gas that can also be produced through the process of decomposition (like what cows do lol!)  Anyone else have an explanation?  I’d like to know for sure, too!