The Call of the Arctic

Top Stories - People - Press Clips - @Work - What's Happening - Faculty Authors The Call of the Arctic Scripps scientists deploy new technology to track changes facing inhabitants of the north Mario Aguilera | March 14, 2011 A 2009 photo taken during a joint expedition with the United States Coast Guard polar icebreaker Healy and the Canadian Coast Guard's Louis S. St. Laurent in the Arctic Ocean's Beaufort Sea. Photo: Patrick Kelley, U.S. Coast Guard photos For thousands of years, the native peoples living along the world's northernmost seas have forged an intimate relationship with their environment. The indigenous inhabitants of the Arctic Ocean's Chukchi and Beaufort seas view themselves as tied to the sea, ice, and other elements of the natural world—even spiritually connected to the animals they hunt and regard as offerings toward the continued subsistence of their people and way of life. From generation to generation, the Inupiaq people inhabiting regions along Alaska's North Slope have passed down traditional knowledge about the often harsh and unforgiving environment of the extreme north. But now their world is changing. A warming climate is melting ice cover in the Arctic. The National Snow and Ice Data Center recently reported that January 2011's Arctic sea ice extent was the lowest for any January since satellite records began in 1979.