Fall storms eat the land. Permafrost that stabilized bluffs for centuries washes away. Homes topple, roads collapse. And now the community must move.
Alaska’s village of Shishmaref, nestled on a barrier island along the Chukchi Sea, took the international stage Sunday during a global warming “town hall meeting” at the annual conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
The meeting featured the premiere of a video illustrating how Shishmaref’s very existence has been threatened by shifting Arctic climate, forcing the 600 residents to seek as much as $100 million to relocate the village on stable ground. Late-forming sea ice in the fall lets storms pound the shore, allowing surf and high water to erode the land beneath homes, schools and roads.
Shishmaref and other Alaska coastal villages “are like the coal miner’s canary,” AAAS President John P. Holdrensaid said in a release. “As we see Inuit villages being forced to be relocated, away from the shoreline, we see a preview of the fate that is going to befall London, and Washington, D.C., and New York, and Boston, and Bombay, as sea level goes up worldwide.”
The video that featured Shishmaref people was released as part a call to action by the AAAS board.
“The scientific evidence is clear: global climate change caused by human activities is occurring now, and it is a growing threat to society,” the board said in consensus statement released Sunday.
“Accumulating data from across the globe reveal a wide array of effects: rapidly melting glaciers, destabilization of major ice sheets, increases in extreme weather, rising sea level, shifts in species ranges, and more. The pace of change and the evidence of harm have increased markedly over the last five years. The time to control greenhouse gas emissions is now.”
The annual gathering, held this year in San Francisco, showcases the world’s latest research and science policy breathroughs. The reality and impact of climate change has dominated the 2007 agenda.
Exposed bluff in Shishmaref
Shismaref Relocation Committee
An AAAS release on Sunday spelled it out:
The plight of the 600 residents of Shishmaref, Alaska, provides a powerful illustration of the human impacts of global climate change. In Shishmaref, on the shores of the Arctic Ocean, the retreat of sea ice and the rise of sea level are combining to drive them from their village and destroy residents’ way of life.
Two Shishmaref teachers, two city leaders, and three high-school students who won an essay-writing contest will be on hand at the AAAS event in San Francisco to catch the premiere of a new short video featuring their experiences. The group will include Shishmaref Science Teacher Ken Stenek; Elementary Teacher Denise Thoreson; Transportation Planner Tony Weyiouanna Sr.; Mayor Stanley Tocktoo; and students Frieda Grierson (grade 9, age 14), Jaime Barr (grade 11, age 16), and Simon Weyiouanna (grade 11, age 16).
In the video, Stenek, Tocktoo, and Weyiouanna Sr. each describe their observations of dramatic physical changes in Shishmaref, a 4,000-year-old Inupiaq village, such as rapid beach erosion and thinning ice.
“The fish are way up river and gone somewhere else,” Tocktoo said. “With the permafrost nowadays, we bury our fish and food very shallow because the sun is so hot, the sun might heat up the sand and then spoil all our food. That’s what I’m worried about.”
Weyiouanna said that hunting and fishing seasons have changed, too, because of warmer weather and shorter winters. Stenek noted that he has seen “probably close to a hundred feet of land that’s been eroded away on the north side of the island.” Village officials say that since 2001, the island has lost an average of nearly 23 feet of shoreline per year, and some buildings have collapsed into the sea. The village is seeking $180 million in government support for relocation.
“Scientists are observing rapid melting of glaciers, destabilization of major ice sheets, rising sea levels, shifts in species ranges, and increased frequency of weather extremes,” AAAS President John P. Holdren wrote in a cover letter to town hall attendees. “As droughts, heat waves, floods, wildfires, and severe storms intensify, damages to ecosystems and human society are growing apace.”
National Climate Data Center
An estimated 1,200 students and teachers participated in the town hall meeting, organized by AAAS with help from the California Science Teachers Association, the National Science Teachers Association, and the United Educators of San Francisco (representing the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers).
The meeting featured a discussion about shrinking glaciers by Ohio State University scientist Lonnie Thompson, who retrieved a deep core from the ice cap on Alaska’s Mount Bona in the early 2000s.
Also at the meeting:
- The first demonstration of the Stabilization Wedge, a “hands-on learning tool” that illustrates stragegies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
- A new climate change teaching guide from Project 2061, the science-education reform initiative at AAAS.
[...] Shishmaref Alaska is being eroded into the sea, and relocating its 600 people may cost as much as $100 million. What might it cost to relocate the population of Miami [...]
[...] Native subsistence life and expose coastal communities to devastating storms and erosion. (See Shishmaref story.) It it continues as projected, it could eventually threaten the existence of marine mammals [...]