Day: November 17, 2023

In the Arctic, the impact of climate change is happening at an accelerated pace, with temperatures rising two to four times faster than the global average.

“It’s called the polar amplification,” explains Vladimir Romanovsky, a geophysicist at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks. “Snow and ice reflect lots of energy back to space when ice and snow are melting, and the surface turns much darker. So this amount of energy will be absorbed by the surface, and it will make the surface warmer – at the same time making the atmosphere warmer as well.”

Communities in circumpolar regions of Alaska are dealing with a triple challenge of climate change: coastal erosion, thawing of permafrost on which buildings and infrastructure stand, and, for some communities, the challenge of managing encounters with apex predators — polar bears pushed onshore.

“An optimal habitat for polar bears now is basically absent, it’s disappeared,” says Todd Atwood, a wildlife biologist with the United States Geological Survey. He has been studying polar bears for the past 12 years and says melting sea ice makes it harder for bears to hunt seals.

“That tends to be the trigger for bears to either stay with the sea ice as it retreats further over those deeper waters, or, for a growing proportion of the population to make the swim to shore.”

In addition to the high risk of succumbing to sea conditions on a long swim, bears trying to adapt to life on land face an additional risk as they search for new sources of food.

“They’re coming ashore in areas where people are active, whether it’s near communities where people are engaged in subsistence activities, or whether it’s in the oil and gas industrial footprint where people are working [outdoors] on a daily basis,” Atwood says. “And that raises the likelihood of human-bear interactions and conflict.”

In the Inupiat village of Kaktovik on Alaska’s North Slope, posters warn people to be on the lookout for polar bears.

Six hundred kilometers from the nearest big city, Kaktovik hosted visitors on polar bear tours before the COVID pandemic. Those restrictions are now lifted, but it’s contractors, not tourists, occupying the main hotel as they work to complete repairs to the local school and maintain infrastructure before the harsh winter weather and darkness set in.

Lee Kyoutak picks up visitors from the landing strip where small planes carrying a few passengers and supplies land when the island’s frequently foggy weather allows it. He says not to worry about hearing shots or firecrackers. “There’s a polar bear patrol patrolling the village,” he said. “If you go out, just make sure you look around when you go out because there’s polar bears hanging around.”

Kaktovik is one of six communities in North Alaska where residents receive special training provided by the North Slope Borough and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to join Polar Bear Patrols that use non-lethal deterrents to haze bears who sneak into areas where people live or work.

In traditional indigenous communities such as Nuiqsut, Utqiagvik (Barrow), and Kaktovik where there is seasonal whale hunting, polar bears attracted to bowhead whale bones discarded outside the village keep those patrols especially busy. Some encounters between bears and humans can be lethal — for either side.

Inupiat wildlife guide Robert Thompson says he rarely walks around the village unarmed, especially at night.

“I had to shoot two bears that came after me,” he said. “I don’t want to do it, but when bears come after you, you got to defend yourself. One was four to five feet from my doorway, and another one tried to jump into the house though my bedroom window.”

Thompson came to Kaktovik more than 50 years ago. Back then, he says “ice was visible all summer. Pack ice, meaning ice that doesn’t melt. And so, recently, we had 700 miles of open water toward the North Pole. So that’s affecting the polar bears. With the ice around us melting, they are trying to swim ashore. The cubs don’t make it.”

Scientists have recorded polar bears swimming as far as 350 kilometers over several days. Even strong swimmers may not survive the challenge.

Research led by the U.S. Geological Survey shows that in the first decade of the 21st century, the number of polar bears in the southern Beaufort Sea dropped 40%.

“One of the things that we’re pretty confident of as a polar bear research community is that without sea ice, you’re not going to have polar bears,” Atwood said. “They represent a kind of the canary in the cryosphere in the sense that they are the animal that is probably most associated with the threat of climate change to wildlife persistence.”

The International Union for Conservation of Nature lists the polar bear as a vulnerable species most threatened by the loss of sea ice. With an estimated 26,000 bears remaining worldwide, the group says all but a few of those bears could be lost by the end of the century without action on climate change.
…

After a barrage of earthquakes that herald an impending volcanic eruption, some evacuated residents of the Icelandic town of Grindavik wonder if they will ever return.

“There are going to be a lot of people who don’t want to go there. My mother said, ‘I never want to go there again,’” Eythor Reynisson, who was born and raised in Grindavik, told AFP.

The fishing port of 4,000 people on Iceland’s south coast was evacuated on November 11 after magma shifting under the Earth’s crust caused hundreds of earthquakes — a warning of a likely volcanic eruption.

Thousands of smaller tremors have shaken the region since.

With massive crevices ripping roads apart and buildings’ concrete foundations shattered, the once picturesque Grindavik now resembles a war zone.

The damage to the town hall will take months to repair.

Long-term threat

Even if the magma flow stops and no eruption occurs, “there is the issue of whether one should live in a town like this,” Freysteinn Sigmundsson, a geophysicist at the University of Iceland, told AFP.

The Reykjanes peninsula had not experienced an eruption for eight centuries until 2021.

Since then, three eruptions have struck — all in remote uninhabited areas — and volcanologists believe this may be the start of a new era of activity in the region.

Sigmundsson warned that “a difficult period of uncertainty” lies ahead, as eruptions could happen in the coming years.

That has left residents wondering whether it is worth rebuilding their homes.

Sigmundsson said that for the region to be deemed safe, the current activity would first need to cease.

“There is a possibility that the activity will move to another area. And then it could be acceptable to go back to Grindavik,” he said.

Strong community

Despite the conditions, a resilient community spirit was evident as residents this week queued to enter Grindavik to collect belongings they left in their hurried evacuation. 

Residents embraced each other and shared moments of laughter.

“I am really emotional. That’s basically how I am feeling right now,” Johannes Johannesson told AFP.

For some, living around volcanoes comes with the territory.

“We are a strong community, so I think it’s possible to build it up again,” Reynisson said.

Iceland is home to 33 active volcano systems, the highest number in Europe. Towns have been hit before.

In 1973, a fissure erupted just 150 meters (164 yards) from the town center on the island of Heimaey, surprising locals at dawn.

A third of the homes were destroyed, and the 5,300 residents were evacuated. One person died.

In Grindavik, steam fills the air from burst hot water pipes and the electricity grid struggles to keep operating at night because of the infrastructure damage.

Locals are now seeking accommodation in hotels, with friends and family, and at emergency shelters while they wait for life to return to normal.

Authorities have organized occasional trips into the port town, escorting those with homes in the most perilous parts to rescue everything from cherished pets to photo albums, furniture and clothing.

But the operations proceed with utmost caution. On Tuesday the village was quickly emptied as sulfur dioxide measurements indicated the magma was moving closer to the surface.

“There was panic,” Reynisson acknowledged.

Today or in a month

For almost a week, Iceland has been on tenterhooks, prepared for an eruption at any moment.

“There is still a flow of new magma into this crack, and it is widening,” Sigmundsson explained.

As long as there is an inflow of magma into the crack, the likelihood of an eruption remains high.

“We need to be prepared for an eruption happening today or within the coming week or even up to a month,” the researcher said.

The most likely place for an eruption “is from the town of Grindavik northwards,” Sigmundsson said.

For residents, this means an extended and anxiety-filled time over the weeks to come.

“Plans now are to try to manage — try to just get the family into a routine and keep on going,” Johannesson said. 
…

The moon glowed in the predawn Mongolia sky as Agvaantogtokh and his family prepared for another big move. On horseback, he rode to a well with nearly a thousand sheep and goats. Occasionally, he and his wife, Nurmaa, stopped to help struggling young ones, weak after a harsh winter.

Thousands of miles away in Senegal, Amadou Altine Ndiaye’s family led livestock through a sparse African savannah. Horses and donkeys pulled a four-cart caravan along dirt paths in sweltering heat. Cattle followed. The family believed the next village would be richer with vegetation.

“I was born into pastoralism, and since then I’ve known only that,” said Ndiaye, 48, a member of the Muslim Fulani ethnic group who learned the ways of herding alongside his elders. “It’s a source of pride.”

More than 50 million people in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere practice this way of life. As nomadic pastoralists, they keep domestic animals and move with them to seek fresh pastures — often selling some livestock for meat.

Although pastoralism has sustained these populations for millennia, it faces mounting pressures from deteriorating environments, shrinking rangelands, and new generations who seek a less grueling life. At the same time, pastoralism is modernizing, with groups leveraging technology.

The practice has survived for so long because it is designed to adapt to a changing environment — pastoralists move with animals to find fresh pasture and water, leaving behind fallow land to regrow.

Experts say it’s a lesson that could help those who raise livestock at larger scales adapt and reduce the impact on the environment. Pastoralists aren’t only trying to outrun climate change; they’re combating it.

‘We need more rain’

Perhaps more than any other place, Mongolia is known for pastoralism. The practice is enshrined in the nation’s constitution, which calls its 80 million camels, yaks, cows, sheep, goats and horses “national wealth” protected by the state.

For families like Agvaantogtokh’s, pastoralism is more than a profession. It’s a cultural identity that connects generations. At its heart is the human connection to animals.

Agvaantogtokh and his family sell animals for meat. They also sell dairy products such as yogurt and hard cheeses. While they consider animals their property, they also see them as living beings working alongside them.

Researchers say herders believe in “animal agency.” Agvaantogtokh lets his livestock pick grass, flowers or herbs to eat, and find their own water. To him, fencing an animal and asking it to eat the same thing daily is like putting a person in prison.

In Mongolia, weather extremes are a part of life. When Agvaantogtokh thinks about climate change, he worries about humans and livestock.

Chronic drought and warming plague Mongolia. Since 1940, the government says, average temperatures have risen 2.2 degrees Celsius. Dzuds — natural disasters unique to Mongolia caused by droughts and severe, snowy winters — have grown harsher and more frequent.

A dzud pushed Agvaantogtokh and his family to move out after a disastrous winter killed 400 of their animals.

The family lives simply. They have a sink with a rubber pump to limit water use. They live in a tent called a ger, with wooden circular frames insulated with sheepskin and felt, and doors facing east to let in the morning sun.

Nurmaa, who married into this way of life, uses a boiler fired with horse dung to cook and stay warm.

“Year by year,” she said, “I have learned a lot of things.” Herding and birthing animals. Setting up camp. Cooking meals of breads, stews, milk tea and homemade wine.

Surviving on the edge of the Sahara

In Senegal, caravans carry the comforts of a furnished home, such as a metal bed frame and mattress, and water for people and animals.

With the rainy season approaching earlier this year, Ndiaye, his son-in-law Moussa Ifra Ba and the rest of the family prepared for a 170-kilometer, 16-day trek.

“The livestock are hungry, and you sometimes have trouble selling one because it is so thin,” Ndiaye said. Water and plentiful grass have become harder to come by.

Ba said: “Many varieties of tree have disappeared, and even our children are unaware of certain species. The best varieties of grass no longer grow in certain areas, and the most widespread grass is more like rubber: It fills the belly but doesn’t nourish the animals.”

Meals for Ndiaye’s family rarely include meat. Only when they pass through certain villages can they stock up on food — vegetables, rice. Per-person meat consumption in Senegal is among the lowest in the world; rates are more than six times higher in Mongolia.

Ndiaye’s family doesn’t sell animals regularly. Meat is mostly for special occasions: weddings, holidays. When they do, a few head of cattle can provide enough money to get married, buy rice or even emigrate.

Ancient practice, new techniques

To keep their practice alive, pastoralists seek ways to modernize.

In Mongolia, Lkhaebum recently began using a motorbike to more easily search for horses. The family has a solar-powered battery that runs a television and washing machine, a karaoke machine, and a cellphone to keep track of weather and access Facebook groups where herders exchange information.

Though modern tools promise to make things easier, many pastoralists run into obstacles. Those in Senegal, for example, often struggle to find cellphone signals. They rely mostly on older technology and methods. An important advancement in infrastructure has helped: water towers known as forages that have sprung up with government assistance.

Perhaps the biggest threat to pastoralism comes from within, as the next generation chooses other paths.

Nurmaa and Agvaantogtokh’s 18-year-old daughter studies medicine. Their son spoke about becoming a herder in his early teens. But not anymore.

“I won’t regret anything if my child won’t be a herder,” Nurmaa said. “I would like them to do what they aspire to do.”

Four of Ndiaye’s seven living children don’t travel with their parents. Ba, 28, and his wife Houraye, 20, have a 2-year-old daughter and want to expand their family. They mused about a future in which at least one child stays in pastoralism while at least one goes to school.

“I’d like my children to keep up with the changing world,” Ba said. 
…