The North Pole Was Here: Puzzles and Perils at the Top of the World

Comments on The North Pole Was Here: Puzzles and Perils at the Top of the World.......2006-09-18

Imagine a land where the sun rises at 1:58 a.m. in the summer and shines for less than four hours on a winter's day. The animals in the wilderness near Fairbanks, Alaska, witness some of the world's greatest temperature extremes and light variations every year. At an average low of -16 degrees Fahrenheit, the winters may be unpleasantly frigid, but the light shows are always glorious!

Scientists and natives wrestle with our changing climate in the land where it has hit first--and hardest

A traditional Eskimo whale-hunting party races to shore near Barrow, Alaska--their comrades trapped on a floe drifting out to sea--as ice that should be solid this time of year gives way. Elsewhere, a team of scientists transverses the tundra, sleeping in tents, surviving on frozen chocolate, and measuring the snow every ten kilometers in a quest to understand the effects of albedo, the snow's reflective ability to cool the earth beneath it.

Climate change isn't an abstraction in the far North. It is a reality that has already dramatically altered daily life, especially that of the native peoples who still live largely off the land and sea. Because nature shows her footprints so plainly here, the region is also a lure for scientists intent on comprehending the complexities of climate change. In this gripping account, Charles Wohlforth follows the two groups as they navigate a radically shifting landscape. The scientists attempt to decipher its smallest elements and to derive from them a set of abstract laws and models. The natives draw on uncannily accurate traditional knowledge, borne of long experience living close to the land. Even as they see the same things-a Native elder watches weather coming through too fast to predict; a climatologist notes an increased frequency of cyclonic systems-the two cultures struggle to reconcile their vastly different ways of comprehending the environment.

With grace, clarity, and a sense of adventure, Wohlforth--a lifelong Alaskan--illuminates both ways of seeing a world in flux, and in the process, helps us to navigate a way forward as climate change reaches us all.

The Whale and the Supercomputer: On the Northern Front of Climate Change.......2006-05-01

The title comes from the interplay between the whale hunting Inupiaq Eskimos and the visiting scientists trying to get a better understanding of what's happening to the climate of the world. Indeed the strength of the book is in Mr. Wohlforth's understanding of both cultures and with his gift in writing so that he is able to explain the world view of both cultures.

Addictive Disorders in Arctic Climates: Theory, Research, and Practice at the Novosibirsk Institute

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Addictive Disorders in Arctic Climates: Theory, Research, and Practice at the Novosibirsk Institute
Bernard Segal , and Ts. P. Korolenko
Manufacturer: Haworth Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Arctic Alpine Ecosystems and People in a Changing Environment

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Arctic Alpine Ecosystems and People in a Changing Environment

Manufacturer: Springer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 3540485120

The European Arctic and Alpine regions are experiencing large environmental changes. Increased temperatures and precipitation, reduction in sea ice and glacier ice, the increased level of UV-radiation and the long-range transported contaminants are challenging new stress factors for both terrestrial and aquatic organisms. The large annual variation in the physical parameters of these extreme environments is also a key factor in structuring the biodiversity and biotic productivity, and the effect of the stress factors can be critical for the population structures and the interaction between species. These changes may also have socio-economic effects if the changes affect the bioproduction, which form the basis for the marine and terrestrial food chains. This book gives an integrated overview of the contemporary environmental changes in Arctic, Alpine Regions; Climate Change and Ecosystem Response, Long Range Transport of Pollutants and Ecotoxicology, UV-radiation and Biological Effects, Socio-economic Effects of Environmental Change.

This unique group of authors from the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute in St. Petersburg, Russia, have all achieved individual doctoral theses on various aspects of Arctic and Antarctic research. Ivan Frolov, whose speciality is oceanography, has completed a study of Arctic Ice Cover, researching ice distribution in the seas of the Russian Arctic and has authored 70 scientific papers.

Zalman Gudkovich's main area of research remains ice motion in the Arctic Ocean and seas of the Siberian Shelf, and he has contributed to 150 scientific publications and proceedings. Vladimir Radionov, whose international research projects have included a joint US/Russian Arctic atlas and a major Arctic climatology project, is the co-author of some 60 scientific related publications. Alexander Shirochkov has participated in three winter long Antarctic expeditions and is now head of the Ionospheric Research Laboratory of the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute. He has more than 100 scientific papers to his name and has contributed to several collective scientific books. Leonid Timokhov also worked on the joint US/Russian Arctic Atlas and the Arctic Climatology project and is the author and co-author of some 120 scientific publications and proceedings. This extremely experienced group of researchers and authors are ideally suited to write this book.