Scientist reveals a melting Alaska
HOT FACTS: Photos show rapidly shrinking glaciers; data suggest harmful effects.
By DOUG O'HARRA
Anchorage Daily News
(Published: January 25, 2005)
In climate science, a few pictures can be worth a thousand data points.
Two photos taken about 50 years apart show the shrinking McCall Glacier in the Brooks Range -- once a bulging river of ice, now an eroded tongue.
Other graphs illustrate overall glacial meltdown in Alaska and Greenland -- and their contribution to the slow rise in sea level. The Arctic ice pack withered in the summers of 2002, 2003 and 2004 -- creating a vast ice-free expanse in the Chukchi Sea northwest of Alaska's Arctic Coast.
And then there's a consequence: white, foaming surf tears away at the bank in the coastal village of Shishmaref, consuming land and undercutting village housing.
"I think the erosion was occurring right as the picture was taken," said John Walsh, the President's Professor of Climate Change at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and lead scientist at the International Arctic Research Center.
Showing a battery of slides to about 120 scientists, mariners, fishermen, conservationists and local residents at a marine science conference in downtown Anchorage on Monday, Walsh opened a session devoted to the monitoring of ocean conditions with a refresher about Arctic climate change.
Walsh was one of the lead scientists working on the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, a 1,200-page scientific report that will be released in spring along with policy recommendations. A nontechnical summary of the report's 10 findings, aimed at the general public, was released last fall by the international Arctic Council.
The highlights are now familiar -- and controversial. The Arctic has been warming faster than the rest of the world, and is more vulnerable to ecological and social change than other regions. In Alaska and western Canada, average winter temperatures have increased as much as 7 degrees Fahrenheit over the past six decades during winter, he said.
Glaciers are melting. Summer sea ice has shrunk and may be almost absent by the end of the century. The tundra is getting brushier, while insects and wildfires spread in the summer heat. The permafrost is disintegrating in some places, changing the ecosystem and threatening to undercut roads, buildings and pipelines.
The report also warned that human activity might be exacerbating climate change by burning fossil fuels and clearing land, releasing heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide and methane into the air.
During a question session after his talk, several people asked Walsh how he thought policy makers will respond to the report.
One person reminded Walsh that Alaska Rep. Don Young had dismissed some of the assessment's conclusions, saying his opinion "was as good as a scientist's."
"What would you say to that?" the man asked, raising laughter and applause from the audience.
"I would respond by saying I think the facts speak for themselves," Walsh said. "There's clearly something going on."
