Near the upper edge of the image, just left of center, the white arc of the Yukon River Delta protrudes into the ice-covered Bering Sea. The spreading branches of the Yukon River appear blue-white within that arc, creating a design which looks much like a stylized leafless tree on a snowy background. Credit: NASA Goddard
Climate change has altered the lives of Native Alaskans in the state's interior in dramatic, sometimes dangerous ways.
Although the effects of change are well documented along the coast, where higher tides and ferocious storms have threatened native communities, a study by the U.S. Geological Survey has found indigenous people in Alaska's interior also have felt the transformation to a warmer climate during the past several decades of their lifetimes.
The study, appearing in the October 2011 issue of the journal Human Organization, is a rare, but increasingly common kind of research that tried to match the "traditional knowledge" of people at the site - hunters and village elders - with scientific data.
"They pretty much agreed," said Nicole Herman-Mercer of the USGS in Boulder, Co.
Herman-Mercer and Paul F. Schuster, also of USGS, along with Karonhiakt'tie Bryan Maracle of the Council of Athabascan Tribal Governments in Fort Yukon, traveled to two outlying villages in the Yukon Delta, St. Mary's and Pitka's Point, to interview the people on how their lives have been affected. Like most of the villages in the delta, the population is entirely Yup'ik Eskimos who have a subsistence-based lifestyle.
The researchers interviewed 13 people, eight of them men. The number of subjects was small because of logistical and cultural difficulties, the researchers said, and they plan to go back. Read the full report here.
Source: by Joel N. Shurkin, Physorg.com.
