Johannes, 16.06.2008

Before answering the questions readers of our blogs raised, I want to give you a quick summary of today.

Our 6th day started as usual, with a lecture, this time Solitair Townsend, a communication-trainer from London, told us how to talk to leaders in politics and business. I think that was quite important, because we all want leaders using their power for combating global warming.
In the afternoon we landed at Snatcherpynten, Recherchefjord and walked up to a moraine of the Renard Glacier. We climbed the glacier and had a magnificent view of this nature.

In the evening the crew of the ship prepared a surprise: we had a barbeque (!) in front of a great landscape with glaciers and high snow covered mountains. While eating we just had nice conversations and enjoyed the sunshine.

But now I want to answer your questions:
“Gerry B” asks which “submarine” we used and if it is something special about the Arctic.
I think you have seen the photos of our first Onboard-Day. On this day (Wednesday) we had a safety and lifeboat drill. So we had to embark in the narrow lifeboats, which probably on the photos look like submarines.

Gerry B also wanted to know whether we had special fitness training and tests.
Although some trips are a bit exhausting, we did not partake in fitness trainings or test. When we applied for the voyage there was only the note that every participant has to be healthy and fit enough to go to the Arctic.

Ann likes to see photos of the seal and the reindeer(s).
Unfortunately we currently do not have the communication possibilities to load up extra pictures. But as soon as we are back in “internet territory” we will make sure to show you more pictures. Until then check out
Pictures on German blog
– our German blog for more photos.

“Tom” wants to know why the Sami are suffering from global warming and why they aren’t happy about things warming up.
As I/ we already mentioned in the blog the Sami have several problems probably caused by global warming. Let me give you an example which was given to us by the Sami Olav Mathis Eira, reindeer-herder from North Norway. In the 1990s several times it rained during winter. The last time that happened was in 1918! This caused several problems. As the rain froze on top of the snow cover forming a thick hard layer, the reindeer where unable to dig through the snow and to find food. Furthermore reindeers had trouble to walk on the frozen rain. According to Olav Mathis Eira this probably led to a severe decrease in reindeer during the 1990s. Nearly everybody sees global warming as the cause for these incidents, which occurred several times in the last 20 years.
Another example is that oil-companies began to exploit the nature because global warming makes it easier and, of course, cheaper to use the natural resources in Norwegian and Swedish arctic regions. This industrial development destroys valuable nature and at the life of the Sami people because they depend on the intact nature here in the Arctic.

And a PS from Irene, your Ice-Blogger in the background:
The Inupiat in Arctic Alaska are another indigenous group affected by climate change, as you may have read on this blog.
If you listen in to this week’s edition of Living Planet, you can hear a feature about my visit to the Inupiat with a field trip from the Ben and Jerry’s Climate Change College.
Here’s the link
Radio Feature on the Inupiat of Arctic Alaska and Climate Change
Cara,Erika, Jakob, Aart – you’re all in that feature, you were great, and I hope you’ll be listining in!!!
Marc and Michel from the Climate Change College (currently up there in the Arctic!) – you’ll be proud of them!!

This was us in Barrow just two weeks ago.
This morning, this email reached me from George Divoky, our ornithologist friend, observing climate change as part of his work monitoring a black guillemot colony on the Arctic’s Cooper Island:

“Was able to follow your travels via the B&J website and your blog and it looked like you were able to see some impressive examples of climate change in Alaska.
I was impressed with both the quality of climate change ambassadors and the media traveling with them. I tend to be skeptical of much of what is said and done to bring climate change issues to the public but found this exercise to be a good one and was glad I could become involved.
(…) I head off to Alaska in a week and Cooper Island about a week after that. After the late and snowy spring (which you know about first hand) things have gotten very hot there (5 C as I write this) and the snow all melted in the past two days.
Best,
George”

George J. Divoky
Friends of Cooper Island

So what are these African animals (I took the pictures in Tanzania) doing on the Ice Blog? Of course it’s all about biodiversity.
The Arctic is particularly sensitive to climate change and acts as a kind of early warning system. At the same time, ice melting up there will have consequences for the whole planet. I’ve gone on a lot about how melting sea ice affects the flora and fauna in Arctic regions. There’s also been a mention of how melting glaciers change the temperature, salinity and light conditions of the ocean. I’m currently working on a radio feature on my trip out onto the sea ice up in the Arctic with the “ambassadors” from the Climate Change College and scientist Chris Petrich. (Listen out for that in Living Planet). One of the main subjects of his research is the “albedo effect”. That is all about how the whiteness of ice and snow reflects solar radiation back up off the earth’s surface. When the snow cover decreases, the “melt ponds” are a much darker cover, and that absorbs warmth – exacerbating the overall warming effect. So, polar areas have a huge importance for the planet as a whole. Then there is the methane (around 23 times more powerful than c02 as a climate gas) being released from the huge areas of melting permafrost.
All this effects not only the area where it happens, but the whole planet. And of course, the sea level is rising, which will have disastrous effects for all the low-lying areas of the globe.
All our species of plants and animals are dependent on particular habitats and living conditions – from polar bears to giraffes, hippos, kangaroos or cuckoos. (Listen to Alison Hawkes on the plight of the “bird of the year” in the Black Forest. Will cuckoos exist soon only in those quaint – or exasperating – clocks?)
The Cuckoo Story
Last night the IUCN and UNEP staged an event here in Bonn to mark Biodiversity Day.
More about the IUCN
During it, I met Pavan Sukhdev,who’s heading the TEEB project,that is a study on The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity. I felt very privileged to have the chance to talk to the man who’s in charge of what some people say could do for biodiversity what Nicholas Stern’s report did for climate change. The idea is to put a price on nature and make it clear, in economic terms, what it is worth to protect our biodiversity. The first part of the report will be presented in Bonn next week, but he did give me an idea of the scale of things. You can read the interview here:
Pavan Sukhdev on putting a price on nature

This will be a picture day to more than make up for the last couple of text-rich entries.Cara has helped me solve the picture problem and the laptop has not been playing up so far.
Ice-capades:
Hiking across permafrost tundra and frozen lakes, bear tracks, drilling through ice, setting “umbrella traps” (caught any good brollies recently?), digging boots out of deep snow, sometimes with leg still attached…

We’re now in Healy, on the borders of the Denali National Park. We’ve left the freezing temperatures of the Arctic, but are still in snow and ice country.

We spent an incredible day in the (ice)-field with Katey Walter and her assistant Laura, scientists from the University of Alaska in Fairbanks. They’re studying methane emissions from melting permafrost lakes and their contribution to climate change.

Methane is a greenhouse gas 23 times more powerful than co2. Climate change models need to be adjusted to include it. As global temperatures increase, ponds and lakes are formed as the permafrost thaws. There’s been a considerable increase in methane measured seasonally in high northern latitudes, and Katey is looking into the background. How is it formed, to what extent, how much is released under what conditions and what does it all mean for the future climate?
We drove to 8-Mile lake, the dirt track rough but mostly cleared of snow. We were on the lookout for moose and bears, but they kept a low profile.We did find bear tracks on the ice, though.

Transported power drills and other equipment for collecting samples. The idea is to collect plant matter from under the ice and on the tundra to check in the lab, and to collect some methane being emitted from the lake.

One hazard moving around from ice to tundra is losing your boot in snow up to your thighs if you land on a deep soft bit (happened frequently). Sometimes somebody has to dig it out.

The lake is still frozen solid, although the top layer gets mushy or fluid in the sun, so we were wading through water at times. Strange feeling, have to rely on Katey’s word that the ice will hold us all with no problems.
Set up equipment on tarpaulin on ice and have a picnic lunch.

One team of CC ambassadors helped Katey drill into the ice to get plant samples for analysis. The other went with Laura onto the (melting) permafrost to collect samples of dead leaves for analysis (all to find out how fast and under what conditions their decay produces methane).
The students (well they’re not really students, but they do belong to a “College”) worked really hard and without whinging, out on the ice a whole day in strong sunshine. I’m impressed by their knowledge of climate issues, the questions they ask, and how well they soak up the knowledge and can present it. I’ve been interviewing them intermittently (to be heard on Living Planet in the weeks to come).

Laura found a methane “hotspot” in a little “puddle-pond”.

She put an umbrella trap over it, a plastic umbrella/funnel with plastic bottles attached, which collects the gas.

Then she found a second hole which required a boat to access. Art hiked back to base camp, brought and inflated the dingy and they put out a 2nd trap.

Katey and Laura are great, amazingly dedicated and very patient with visiting journalists and “trainee” scientists.

Marc Cornelissen, our expedition leader is a bundle of energy, enthusiasm and he’s completely unflappable. He can magic up lithium batteries which last longer in the cold, fix laptops, cameras, ice-drills, rescue lost equipment stuck in the ice and provide extra socks and even boots after those little “icecapades”.And he just keeps going non-stop.
You can actually light the methane we collected from the lake. Scientists are working on trying to capture it to use it for fuel. Katey says that would be really good for the environment and the climate.

George Divoky is a man with a mission. For three months every summer for more than 30 years, he’s been keeping an eye on a breeding colony of guillemots on remote and normally uninhabited (at least by humans) Cooper Island, north-east of Barrow. He counts them and weighs them when they come in to nest, as attentive as any parent bird. But they’re dependent on sea ice for the feed that’s underneath, and the population is declining, because of the changes in sea ice patterns (I described in earlier entry). They’re forced to eat sub-standard food, as polar cod numbers are dwindling. He’s noted puffins, a sub-Arctic species not normally at home in this region, moving in. But chicks on Cooper are welcome prey for marauding polar bears, also struggling for food with the warming trend causing a decline in sea ice. The bears have even had a go at George’s tiny cabin, and all the plastic bottles inside it. Seems they like hot chilli sauce, not so keen on shampoo. He wanted to fly over with a search and rescue flight plane today, to check if the cabin’s been disturbed, but it was too windy.
Check out the guillemots on Cooper Island
You can listen in to an excerpt from the interview I did with George on this blog soon and the full version in Living Planet in the weeks to come.
George is an inspiring and charismatic speaker. He made quite an impression on all of us. You can also have a listen to Cara, one of our climate ambassadors, giving me her reactions to George’s talk on our windy trek back through the snow, once I get the audio version uploaded (details below). Cara’s a very lively climate ambassador and asks a lot of questions I would otherwise ask myself. If she changes her mind about the eco-renovation project, she could be a reporter at DW.
Other than that, the CC students have been busy with their usual daily chores, listening, questioning, blogging, filming, interviewing climate witnesses and being interviewed. This is attracting a lot of media interest, but they’re also very professional themselves when it comes to documenting the climate change info they’re gathering, and passing it on.
Erika put in an appearance in her pink fluffy worm outfit, very fetching. (She’s the one with the compost project). Jakob offered some tips with my laptop problem. He’s a real tech expert. I’ve been having a(nother?) bad technology day, with the laptop crashing. So excuse me if this entry is a bit thin on the pictures, I’ll make up for it later. A loss of data was averted by Dorin, a super-friendly IT expert from BASC. He fled from the old Roumania when he was 17 and has ended up in Barrow. (There is a strong multicultural element here, at the top end of the world. Our Eskimo friend Alice told me today she also has some Portuguese blood in her). People are very welcoming and helpful here. Basc has looked after us very well. Thanks to Alice, Dorin, Basc chief Glenn and all the folk we met in Barrow.
There was beautiful sun today (you could see the little ice crystals glittering in the air), so there was a lot of outdoor filming. Pieter, the CC cameraman from the Netherlands, deserves a medal, he was outside with the camera for hours.
This afternoon we watched the met man launch the weather balloon in Barrow, contributing to world data on weather and climate. And on the way home, our driver Michael Donovan (yesterday’s bear guide) let us have a photo stop on the “beach” – well the frozen over Chukchi Sea. An unbelievable landscape, “waves” of snow stretching as far as the eye could see.
I’m writing this on the plane to Fairfax. There’s an amazing view of snow-covered Arctic Alaska, the peaks tinged pink and gold in the nighttime sun. It looks deceptively beautiful. We’ve experienced the harsh realities of life in a pola region. The snow cover is diminishing as we move south. We’re a couple of hours late, so it’ll be nearly midnight by the time we get in. And we’re off to Healy at the crack of dawn. Climate ambassadors have a punishing schedule, and this accompanying reporter has to keep up with the pace. Life can be tough when you’re travelling with celebrities.