Students play a game that demonstrates the importance of primary production by Arctic Ocean ice algae and the use of isotopes to trace sources of nutrients in food webs. They also discuss the implications of shrinking Arctic sea ice as a result of climate change.
A five-minute podcast based on interviews with Alaska scientists and member of Alaska Native Alaskan communities about changes in sea ice patterns and their implications for the ecosystem and human communities that have depended traditionally on ice-associated animals. The importance of observing systems, using both technology and knowledgeable community observers, is highlighted.
Brief but eloquent presentation about the importance of ice and the animals that depend on ice habitat to Alaska Native culture and subsistence hunters.
NOAA/UAF. The mission of ACCAP is to assess the socio-economic and biophysical impacts of climate variability in Alaska, make this information available to local and regional decision-makers and improve the ability of Alaskans to adapt to a changing climate.
Bettina Kaiser, Editor. Ice is featured as one of six polar themes. The book provides an excellent summary of current sea ice research and understandings and includes teacher-tested hands-on science activities.
Near-real time and archived images and data are available from the coastal ice observatories operated by the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institutes in the villages of Barrow and Wales, Alaska.
The extent and thickness of Arctic sea ice has diminished significantly during the first decade of the 21rst century, reaching a record low summer extent in 2007. Changes in sea ice have major impacts on Arctic marine ecosystems and on the fish and wildlife species upon which many Alaskan coastal communities and Native cultures depend.
COSEE Alaska Office: 1007 West Third Avenue, Suite 100 • Anchorage, AK 99501 • tel (907) 274-9612 • fax (907) 277-5242
email • Nora.Deans@nprb.org, Program Director or msigman@alaska.edu, Program Manager
