Module VIII
Essential Question:
How are sea ice, culture and climate all connected?

Sea ice is frozen ocean. The Arctic Ocean is almost totally covered in sea ice in the winter and shrinks in summer when it is warmer. The sea ice has different characteristics depending on its location and the nature of its formation. If it is attached to the land it is called fast ice and if it floats on the surface, it is drift ice. Various areas of drift ice that pack together are called pack ice and move together in large masses or may be stabilized by attaching themselves to fast ice when they drift close to shore. This essentially forms an ice platform on the sea and wildlife and humans alike use this time of year to hunt. Human hunters are able to use the 'ice land' to venture out in the ocean to hunt and polar bears wander these ice platforms during the winter season hunting seals and other marine life. They must wait for the sea ice to form to begin their hunting season in the fall and must be back on land when the sea ice begins to melt in the spring. Sea ice is an important factor in the arctic food web and way of life of Native peoples.


Sea ice is connected to climate in two major ways. It is part of the Earth's reflectivity property or albedo. It provides a vast reflective surface that reflects rather than absorb the sun's radiation. Sunlight is reflected back into space. This is a cooling effect on our planet. Sea ice also affects the ocean circulation. When the sea ice forms, it leaves behind the salt that sinks into the deeper water. This deep, dense cold water moves toward the equator and warmer shallow waters move north. This circulation of ocean water coupled with the atmosphere's more active circulation of hot and cold air try to keep our planet in balance.

The Arctic ice pack is diminishing. Changing sea ice amounts and thicknesses affect the Arctic ecosystem. A change in white reflective surfaces would expose ocean waters that absorb rather than reflect heat from the sun. This warmer condition creates a positive feedback loop and so the environment gets warmer still. I think the TD video titled How the Arctic Ecosystem Might Change provides a good explanation of how this part of the world could be impacted by warmer ocean waters and warmer temperatures. In it Louis Fortier says that marine and animal life as we know it could become something more like Altantic and Pacific ecosystems. He attributes this possibility to the fact that our unique wildlife and culture populations have low diversity and survival is best achieved in systems with higher diversity or bio-diversity. Conservation experts like Steve MacLean have spent their careers on helping humans minimize their impact on the plant and animal life of the Arctic, but he explains that the biggest threat now is not over-fishing and hunting but climate change.

Arctic life cycles are being transformed by changing sea ice. Sea ice serves as the primary habitat for many species of birds. We have already discussed its importance to polar bears, humans and other marine life in winter hunting seasons. The shortened hunting seasons leave skinny polar bears by summer's end which may be affecting breeding and feeding cycles. The village populations are being forced to alter their hunting patterns. The change is major detriment to areas that have long depended on consistent signs from nature to drive their hunts. As the sea ice disappears culture changes are inevitable as new food sources may be required. The combination of Western science and the Native Ways of Knowing can help explain what is happening and what cultural changes may come about as a result of disappearing sea ice.

Wainwright, Alaska, is one such village contemplating a changing landscape and a changing lifestyle.