Module VIII: The Cryosphere Part I

Essential Question: How are Arctic sea-ice, climate and culture all connected?

When one looks out at the white, seemingly barren landscape of the Arctic, it is easy to dismiss this ecosystem as unimportant to global climate and underestimate its connection to ecosystems and organisms the world over. After all, this “desolate” landscape has been used to signify loneliness and solitude in popular culture for years, perhaps only matched by the desert. Movies, television, and books continually use the vast white palette of the Arctic to convey a feeling of isolation and being lost. Perhaps this contributes to the difficulty in raising the level of awareness surrounding the Arctic and climate change. After all, how could someplace that on the surface looks so lifeless, be so important to life on Earth?

As we have discovered throughout the modules, energy moves from where it’s hot, to where it’s not, meaning the equator and the poles operate as sort of motors for the global conveyor belt of heat energy. Climate change has the ability to “gunk” up these motors as a change in the Arctic climate could be felt around the world. This happens in a couple of big ways. The first is the loss of the albedo effect on Earth as the reflective sea ice melts and an increasing amount of the Sun’s energy is absorbed, rather than reflective. The positive feedback of this process then accelerates the effect as the remaining ice melts more quickly as more energy is absorbed rather than reflected, and so on… The other big way in which the motors of the Earth’s conveyor belt can change is due to a change in the thermohaline circulation. As the make-up of the Arctic Ocean is changed due to melting sea ice, so is the engine of circulation driven by temperature and density gradients. As we learned in a previous module, this conveyor belt reaches, and therefore affects, all the world’s oceans and has a huge impact on the Atlantic and Pacific – both huge ecosystems as well as climate stabilizers.

Besides the physics-based effects changing sea ice has on our planet, it also has a huge effect on local ecosystems. As I mentioned above, one might not realize on first glance that there is a very productive ecosystem in all that frozen white. Because of the extreme conditions of the Arctic, however, it is not as diverse as other areas, such as the warmer water ecosystems of the coral reefs or the terrestrial ecosystems like rain forests. This lack of diversity should not be a judgment on the usefulness or importance of the Arctic marine ecosystem, but really speaks to the fragility of it.

An example Arctic food web

For example, with fewer possibilities for adapting should a food source no longer be available, Arctic marine organisms (which includes the polar bear since it depends on marine organisms for food and has many adaptations specific to marine life) live in a fragile balance with little room for change. The indigenous people who live in the Arctic, of course, are a part of this food web and will be greatly affected, as their own limited food sources are unable to adapt. Whales and seals, for example, require a large amount of energy to sustain their existence and if the producers and smaller consumers they eat begin to decline, they will as well, taking major staples of the indigenous diet along with them. Additionally, marine organisms (including fish as well as the small organisms that support large marine life) are very susceptible to salinity and temperature. So not only will melting sea ice “gunk” up the motors of thermohaline circulation, but also take out the foundations of an already fragile food-web.

Just as it is difficult to get across the importance of the Arctic to the general public and those pop culture creators, it is even more so for students. They do not see that region with the same fascination as the strange creatures and lush surroundings of the rain forest or with the same romanticism as the grasslands of the Savannah and the stalking lion. Unfortunately, this is true even of those living in Alaska and, even more unfortunate, those living in the Arctic. Many students in traditionally indigenous areas have more interest in the pop culture being created to the south than the changing planet directly under their feet. There are many resources out there to change this and all they require is a commitment on the part of educators to teach certain concepts through the Arctic system rather than through the usual ecosystems that textbooks choose. For example, textbooks usually pick the rain forests of the Amazon or another far off place to talk about photosynthesis. There is no reason Arctic producers can’t be the examples. The physics involved with heat transfer can also easily be taught through the Arctic, such as the glass and paper exercise to help explore albedo. This exercise is a good jumping off point to design more inquiry-based exercises, such as challenging the students to find a way to make one glass of water heat up faster than the other. You can continue this question into exploration of salinity and cooling, as well. This is much more relevant to local students than whatever the Californians or Texans have come up with for their curriculum. There are some Alaskan organizations who have developed exercises and curriculums and these should be rewarded – such as SPRINTT, Polar-Palooza, and the Alaska Native Youth Institute. Additionally, there are many, many resources dedicated to the Arctic – ranging from NOAA and NASA to more locally designed ones like the Crysosphere Today.

All of these resources can be used to build an element of discovery. Students will have much more interest in the Arctic if they are surprised and steadily discover their own interest, rather than being told “The Arctic is important and you should be interested in it and here is why…” Inquiry exercises can be created from the vast resources on sea ice. Students can look at satellite images (such as those from the National Snow and Ice Data Center) and come up with questions to investigate or, in the reverse, they can be given different scenarios and match them back to images of sea ice and sea ice change. Similarly, using interactives that allow students to interface rather than relying solely on passive video clips, can create a more constructivist classroom. That is not to say the video resources available are not beneficial as they do a great job and taking us to locations we are not able to travel to ourselves and bringing us into the lives of people (1, 2, 3) we will never meet.

The political, economical, and social parts of climate change and the Arctic are more difficult than the physics and ecology parts. As the “Anchorage Declaration” from Indigenous Peoples’ Global Summit on Climate Change shows, the issues are not only plentiful, but also complicated. There also seems to be some disagreement among members about how to proceed. For example, under the “Calls for Action” item 1, points A and B are contradictory. One calling for an immediate move away from fossil fuels and fossil fuel development on indigenous lands while the other calls for a “move toward” doing so while still allowing indigenous people the opportunity to control their own lands for development. This raises an important issue about pragmatism. Getting agreement on general goals or points is a lot different than getting policies through Congress and getting businesses to change their practices. We are a carbon dependent culture, globally, and transformational change will not come over night. This is why it is important for those cultures with a disproportionate stake, such as Arctic community, to remain a part of the process that, whether they agree with it or not, they operate under. The Indigenous Peoples’ Global Summit on Climate Change is an example of a way to raise awareness to the issue. Continuing to push for Native scientists like Steve Maclean is an example of a way to get involved with the data that will end up helping the decision makers. The Alaska Native Science and Engineering Program (ANSEP) and Alaska Native Youth Institute are examples of getting young people started on that path as are the local curriculums many communities have developed and delivered along side the state mandated material. In order to have change in our modern world on any issue, whether it’s climate change or fresh water or disease or anything else, the advocate must be guided by what they believe in and combine that with the pragmatism necessary to change policy and economics.