Nome hosts gathering of scientists
Scientists from around Alaska gathered in Nome last week to share and discuss their work and to learn from their colleagues in other disciplines.
The 11th annual Western Alaska Interdisciplinary Science Conference, WAISC for short, was hosted by the University of Alaska Fairbanks Northwest Campus and brought together researchers who generally don’t get exposure to each others’ work.
“The idea is to bring the research that’s relevant to Western Alaska to Western Alaska rather than having a conference in Fairbanks or Anchorage, to try as much as possible to involve the local community,” said Claudia Ihl, Associate Professor of Biology and co-chair of the event. “Often science conferences are very specialized, and there’s a need for that as well. But more and more science embraces the inter-disciplinary approach. It becomes more and more important. You realize there’s more than one way you can look at a thing and you never completely understand an issue until you approach from differently directions.”
Sea ice
One thread, which ran through the conference with a consistency, was the warming of the Arctic and how to deal with it. The disappearance of sea ice is fundamental to warming so a report on sea ice got right to the primary issue.
Richard Thoman’s “Sea Ice in Western Alaska” was a revelation of last winter’s sea ice conditions. Thoman is Climate Science and Services Manager for the National Weather Service Alaska Region.
“I think there’s going to be some jaw-dropping stuff here,” Thoman began. “But it’s important to remember this is not new in the sense that the people of Western Alaska have been aware of it for a long time.”
Thoman’s first slide showed beautiful mountains of the Chukotka coast rising above a stormy sea.
“We all know how wrong this picture is on Jan. 30th,” he said. “It’s effectively open water.”
Both the Beaufort and Chukchi seas froze up late this winter, said Thoman. The southern regions of the two seas were persistently stormy and there were no consistent cold north winds. A contributor to all this was the warming of the Bering Sea, which was first documented in 2013. Forty years of satellite information provide near daily estimates across the entire Arctic and Antarctic.
A map from a European satellite shows the ice did not make it as far as St. Matthew Island and the Chukotka coast is ice-free.
“There’s nothing at all anything like this in the total ice extant,” said Toman, showing a graph of ice in the Bering Sea. “Virtually every day this year has been the lowest of our 40 years of record. Just amazing.”
Thoman’s charts showed the Chukchi Sea freeze-up is when 95 percent of the basin is sea ice. In previous times it was typical for 75 percent of the basin to be covered by November 1. But in 2017, the coverage was just barely 30 percent on Nov. 1. And it wasn’t until mid December that coverage reached 90 percent.
“That’s a dramatic change,” he said. “One month in 40 years.” He pointed out that the satellite data made for consistent comparisons.
“What does the sea ice record look like using the historical sea ice atlas?” he asked. “Sea ice is not just all about thickness. That’s just what’s easy to measure.”
“You might want to ask how good is this information? Back in the early 1800s there was quite a bit of whaling going on on the ice edge. So ship’s captains’ logs have been mined.” There is documentation of mean sea ice extent every February since 1850.
“There’s nothing like this in your lifetime, your parents’, your grandparents, your great-grandparents, your great-great-grandparents lifetime,” said Thoman. “After 1915 we have climate observations from St. Paul. Their winter climate is very closely related to what’s going on with sea ice. So we have high confidence there has been nothing like this since 1870.”
Thoman projected a view of the region from space taken on Feb. 20. It showed very little ice.
Why so little ice?
Freeze-up began late. There were persistent storms and the Bering Sea has been warmer than average for several years. There is no great way to quantify storminess so Thoman uses the strength of the South wind as a proxy. He shows that in the past 70 years the winds at the surface are not much above normal.
“Not at record levels,” he said. “Which means in the last 70 years there’ve been stormier winters in our region. Not unprecedented storminess.”
So why is there so little sea ice? The atmosphere is only part of the answer, the ocean is the other. Since 2013 Bering Sea temperatures have been above normal. This winter some parts of the Bering Sea registered the warmest temperatures on record this winter. Below the surface is also important, as a lot of heat has worked below the surface.
“You probably don’t need me up here to tell you it’s going to be an early melt-out,” said Thoman. “There isn’t much ice and what there is is thin. Because the ice formed so late there’s lots of area with very little snow on it. Snow is a good insulator. Ice is going to go early.”
In the past when the atmospheric conditions were not that different from now sea ice still formed. That was because the temperature of the sea was cold enough.
“Even in favorable water conditions, water is too warm now. But it’s not like Bering Sea ice will never recover. It will recover some. But given what we know what is happening on the ocean, what is happening with the long term trends, everybody from individuals, to communities, tribes, state and federal agencies need to prepare for this kind of very low ice winter. It is certain to happen again. It’s not going to be 150 years until we see this again. That I am certain of. Why? The oceans are warming. The big contributor. We need to prepare.”
Learning from each other
Lori Gildehaus is a professor from UAF who specializes in wildlife biology and diseases. She currently is the Lead Research Advising and Mentoring Professional for BLaST, Biomedical Learning and Student Training. BLaST focuses on increasing diversity in the biomedical research field.
“I find this conference very refreshing,” she said. “I enjoy the energy. I think everybody is here to learn from each other and to work together. I think it creates a lot of awareness around a lot of important issues. It’s also a great experience for undergraduate students, especially because of some that are with us now have never presented before so this is a really good supportive, inclusive environment for them to share their research. “
Todd A. Radenbaugh, Professor of Environmental Science, UAF Bristol Bay Campus, spoke on “Where science unites with traditional knowledge.” He praised WAISC for its inclusivity.
“What we want is to share knowledge from all walks of life,” he said. “Local knowledge, knowledge from and academic perspective, from an industry perspective, because when you live in a smallish community like Western Alaska has, it’s important that we share this knowledge so that we can live more comfortably in our communities, more sustainably in our communities, we can start solving some of the larger issues, especially climate change.”
Radenbaugh pointed out another thing he likes about the WAISC conference.
“One of the more important aspects of this conference than the actual lectures themselves is all the talk that goes on in the hallway. The northwest campus has all kinds of great hallways. And I just walk down the hallway and I’m just listening to high school students talking to scientists and scientists talking to resource managers and resource managers talking to industry. A lot of times you don’t get that at other conferences. Especially disciplinary conferences.”
Participants delivered over 50 presentations. Some were as short as 15 minutes but all were densely packed with information. One of the best attended was John Earthman’s presentation on falconry, which included a pair of his falcons. While one of the falcons chattered Earthman described his relationship with the birds.
Co-production of knowledge was a topic of a plenary workshop Wednesday evening. A panel included Carolina Behe, Julie Raymond-Yakoubian and Raychelle Daniel. So-called Western science, the science which comes out of our universities, has not always recognized the knowledge of indigenous inhabitants of the regions under study. In many cases this failure to consider significant understanding of the natural world has handicapped the scientists. Respect for multiple knowledge systems and appreciation for what they can contribute strengthens science overall.
“I think that ignoring traditional knowledge you’re really cutting yourself off at the knees,” said Anahma Shannon, Environmental Program Director at Kawerak. “In many different ways. But for a long time with western science it’s been a one-way street without taking into account all the things that people here have known for 10,000 years. You figure people here have survived so long, not only do they know something but they are experts at living here.”
By James Mason
Scientists from around Alaska gathered in Nome last week to share and discuss their work and to learn from their colleagues in other disciplines.
The 11th annual Western Alaska Interdisciplinary Science Conference, WAISC for short, was hosted by the University of Alaska Fairbanks Northwest Campus and brought together researchers who generally don’t get exposure to each others’ work.
“The idea is to bring the research that’s relevant to Western Alaska to Western Alaska rather than having a conference in Fairbanks or Anchorage, to try as much as possible to involve the local community,” said Claudia Ihl, Associate Professor of Biology and co-chair of the event. “Often science conferences are very specialized, and there’s a need for that as well. But more and more science embraces the inter-disciplinary approach. It becomes more and more important. You realize there’s more than one way you can look at a thing and you never completely understand an issue until you approach from differently directions.”
Sea ice
One thread, which ran through the conference with a consistency, was the warming of the Arctic and how to deal with it. The disappearance of sea ice is fundamental to warming so a report on sea ice got right to the primary issue.
Richard Thoman’s “Sea Ice in Western Alaska” was a revelation of last winter’s sea ice conditions. Thoman is Climate Science and Services Manager for the National Weather Service Alaska Region.
“I think there’s going to be some jaw-dropping stuff here,” Thoman began. “But it’s important to remember this is not new in the sense that the people of Western Alaska have been aware of it for a long time.”
Thoman’s first slide showed beautiful mountains of the Chukotka coast rising above a stormy sea.
“We all know how wrong this picture is on Jan. 30th,” he said. “It’s effectively open water.”
Both the Beaufort and Chukchi seas froze up late this winter, said Thoman. The southern regions of the two seas were persistently stormy and there were no consistent cold north winds. A contributor to all this was the warming of the Bering Sea, which was first documented in 2013. Forty years of satellite information provide near daily estimates across the entire Arctic and Antarctic.
A map from a European satellite shows the ice did not make it as far as St. Matthew Island and the Chukotka coast is ice-free.
“There’s nothing at all anything like this in the total ice extant,” said Toman, showing a graph of ice in the Bering Sea. “Virtually every day this year has been the lowest of our 40 years of record. Just amazing.”
Thoman’s charts showed the Chukchi Sea freeze-up is when 95 percent of the basin is sea ice. In previous times it was typical for 75 percent of the basin to be covered by November 1. But in 2017, the coverage was just barely 30 percent on Nov. 1. And it wasn’t until mid December that coverage reached 90 percent.
“That’s a dramatic change,” he said. “One month in 40 years.” He pointed out that the satellite data made for consistent comparisons.
“What does the sea ice record look like using the historical sea ice atlas?” he asked. “Sea ice is not just all about thickness. That’s just what’s easy to measure.”
“You might want to ask how good is this information? Back in the early 1800s there was quite a bit of whaling going on on the ice edge. So ship’s captains’ logs have been mined.” There is documentation of mean sea ice extent every February since 1850.
“There’s nothing like this in your lifetime, your parents’, your grandparents, your great-grandparents, your great-great-grandparents lifetime,” said Thoman. “After 1915 we have climate observations from St. Paul. Their winter climate is very closely related to what’s going on with sea ice. So we have high confidence there has been nothing like this since 1870.”
Thoman projected a view of the region from space taken on Feb. 20. It showed very little ice.
Why so little ice?
Freeze-up began late. There were persistent storms and the Bering Sea has been warmer than average for several years. There is no great way to quantify storminess so Thoman uses the strength of the South wind as a proxy. He shows that in the past 70 years the winds at the surface are not much above normal.
“Not at record levels,” he said. “Which means in the last 70 years there’ve been stormier winters in our region. Not unprecedented storminess.”
So why is there so little sea ice? The atmosphere is only part of the answer, the ocean is the other. Since 2013 Bering Sea temperatures have been above normal. This winter some parts of the Bering Sea registered the warmest temperatures on record this winter. Below the surface is also important, as a lot of heat has worked below the surface.
“You probably don’t need me up here to tell you it’s going to be an early melt-out,” said Thoman. “There isn’t much ice and what there is is thin. Because the ice formed so late there’s lots of area with very little snow on it. Snow is a good insulator. Ice is going to go early.”
In the past when the atmospheric conditions were not that different from now sea ice still formed. That was because the temperature of the sea was cold enough.
“Even in favorable water conditions, water is too warm now. But it’s not like Bering Sea ice will never recover. It will recover some. But given what we know what is happening on the ocean, what is happening with the long term trends, everybody from individuals, to communities, tribes, state and federal agencies need to prepare for this kind of very low ice winter. It is certain to happen again. It’s not going to be 150 years until we see this again. That I am certain of. Why? The oceans are warming. The big contributor. We need to prepare.”
Learning from each other
Lori Gildehaus is a professor from UAF who specializes in wildlife biology and diseases. She currently is the Lead Research Advising and Mentoring Professional for BLaST, Biomedical Learning and Student Training. BLaST focuses on increasing diversity in the biomedical research field.
“I find this conference very refreshing,” she said. “I enjoy the energy. I think everybody is here to learn from each other and to work together. I think it creates a lot of awareness around a lot of important issues. It’s also a great experience for undergraduate students, especially because of some that are with us now have never presented before so this is a really good supportive, inclusive environment for them to share their research. “
Todd A. Radenbaugh, Professor of Environmental Science, UAF Bristol Bay Campus, spoke on “Where science unites with traditional knowledge.” He praised WAISC for its inclusivity.
“What we want is to share knowledge from all walks of life,” he said. “Local knowledge, knowledge from and academic perspective, from an industry perspective, because when you live in a smallish community like Western Alaska has, it’s important that we share this knowledge so that we can live more comfortably in our communities, more sustainably in our communities, we can start solving some of the larger issues, especially climate change.”
Radenbaugh pointed out another thing he likes about the WAISC conference.
“One of the more important aspects of this conference than the actual lectures themselves is all the talk that goes on in the hallway. The northwest campus has all kinds of great hallways. And I just walk down the hallway and I’m just listening to high school students talking to scientists and scientists talking to resource managers and resource managers talking to industry. A lot of times you don’t get that at other conferences. Especially disciplinary conferences.”
Participants delivered over 50 presentations. Some were as short as 15 minutes but all were densely packed with information. One of the best attended was John Earthman’s presentation on falconry, which included a pair of his falcons. While one of the falcons chattered Earthman described his relationship with the birds.
Co-production of knowledge was a topic of a plenary workshop Wednesday evening. A panel included Carolina Behe, Julie Raymond-Yakoubian and Raychelle Daniel. So-called Western science, the science which comes out of our universities, has not always recognized the knowledge of indigenous inhabitants of the regions under study. In many cases this failure to consider significant understanding of the natural world has handicapped the scientists. Respect for multiple knowledge systems and appreciation for what they can contribute strengthens science overall.
“I think that ignoring traditional knowledge you’re really cutting yourself off at the knees,” said Anahma Shannon, Environmental Program Director at Kawerak. “In many different ways. But for a long time with western science it’s been a one-way street without taking into account all the things that people here have known for 10,000 years. You figure people here have survived so long, not only do they know something but they are experts at living here.”
