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Barrow is magnet for researchers of climate change, oil

by Ted Land
Tuesday, November 03, 2009

BARROW, Alaska -- Each summer the world's leading climate researchers flock to the Barrow Arctic Science Consortium, a local research facility.

They say they're finding undeniable evidence that the planet is warming, and communities like Barrow are feeling it first.

It's easy to miss. A few hundred yards out into the tundra near Barrow there's a passage few visitors, or even residents for that matter, have ever seen.

The 40-foot descent reveals a world that never thaws.

The ice cave was dug in the 1960s for research purposes and is still used today.

Scientists pull core samples and measure the levels of CO2, which is one of the main greenhouse gases.

"Well, they can find out the CO2 content of the atmosphere when it was frozen," said Nok Acker with BASC.

The cores are then studied at BASC, a non-profit research facility that attracts worldwide attention for the work they host.

"Everybody tells you, and we see it, that the Arctic is the first, you could say, victim or place to experience climate change and it's more exaggerated here sooner. So (if) you want to see what somebody else further south is going to experience, see what's happening here," said Glenn Sheehan, the Consortium's executive director.

Those changes include retreating permafrost-- scientists say the layer of tundra that thaws in the summer may be extending deeper.

They've observed their radio towers and other heavy equipment sinking ever-so-slightly into the softened tundra.

"This part is warming up. One of the main factors here is the sea ice extent and with the retreating sea ice we see quite significant changes in temperature," said Martin Stuefer, a researcher with the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute

Even the archaeologists who work there are affected.

Anne Jensen is excavating an ancient grave site which is rapidly eroding because the coastline does not stay frozen as long as it once did.

"The descendants of these people are still around and nobody particularly would like to have their relatives falling in the ocean," said Jensen, an Ukpeagvik Inupiat Corporation senior scientist.

Barrow residents are closely tied to the research center. It's an economic and intellectual engine for the community, and hires local guides, mentors students and shares results with the neighbors.

"Well, you don't want a scientist landing in your backyard and digging it up and not telling you what's going on," Sheehan said.

The consortium also goes beyond climate research.

Kelly McFarlin is a UAF graduate student trying to find out how oil dispersants would affect the different species that live in the Arctic Ocean.

"If there ever happens to be an oil spill up here, we'll know the best way to deal with it. We'll know how fast the natural environment will be able to break down those components," McFarlin said.

This is a land of extremes, but that's the attraction for scientists, who are preparing to deal with changes if and when they start to impact the rest of us.

One of the projects they'll be working on this winter is a study of frost flowers, which are intricate ice crystal structures which only recently have received attention from scientists.

Studying the crystals could yield information as to how the climate might be changing.

Contact Ted Land at tland@ktuu.com