Dorte Dissing and David Verbyla, forestry experts at the the University of
Alaska in Fairbanks, analysed the pattern and intensities of lightning
strikes recorded in Alaska between 1986 and 1997 by an automated network of
monitors run by the US Bureau of Land Management. The researchers compared these
data with a map of Alaska’s major vegetation zones—boreal forest, tundra
and scrubland. By far the greatest concentration of strikes occurred over boreal
forests.

Lightning may favour the boreal forests because air temperatures above them
are higher than over other vegetation, say the researchers. To create lightning,
the air below the clouds must be much warmer than the air above, and rising in
large volumes. A previous theory by Roger Pielke and Pier Vidale of Colorado
State University (Journal of Geophysical Research, vol 100, p 25 755)
suggested that slow-growing boreal forests tap solar energy for photosynthesis
at a lower rate than faster growing vegetation. As a result the forests lose
more solar energy as heat, which in turn raises local air temperatures. In this
way, boreal forests could trigger more lightning strikes. Before now, no one had
tested Pielke and Vidale’s theory.

Conventional wisdom has it that lightning strikes are more frequent at higher
altitudes. But Dissing and Verbyla found that although this was true below 1000
metres above sea level, there was no correlation above this height. Furthermore,
says Dissing, the number of lightning strikes always appears to decline above
the treeline.

“Because thunderstorms tend to gather over mountainous areas, we’d always
assumed that that’s where we would see the most strikes,” says Ted Fathauer,
chief forecaster for the US National Weather Service in Alaska. “But this throws
out cherished theories about lightning preferring high altitudes.”

Since 1990, over 4000 fires—mostly started by lightning—have
burned over 2.7 million hectares of forest in Alaska. John Yarie, also at the
University of Alaska, has suggested that the burnt remains of forests attract
further lightning strikes. This is because their darker colour absorbs more
solar energy, which the forest radiates as heat, warming up the surrounding air.

“About fifteen years ago, it started getting warmer. The snow melts faster
and faster,” says Benjamin Pungowiyi, a young hunter from the village of
Savoonga, and adds that the ice freezes later and breaks up a lot sooner. “I
notice that the tundra is not as spongy as it used to be,” says Hannah
Mendenhall from Kotzebue. “Now I can hear it crackle when I walk on it, and it’s
dry. It’s real dry.” She adds: “We’re beginning to get insects that are not
usually of this climate. We’re getting so warm that they’re comfortable coming
up this way.”

Jack Stalker of Point Lay says that where there used to be landlocked ice in
front of his land claim, now it’s only slush ice. “In previous years we’d have
icebergs and ice build-up right next to the shore. This year there was hardly
any. Slush ice is usually the fall ice, but when it happens in January and
February it’s strange.”

“The tundra is drier due to lack of rain,” claims Gibson Moto of Deering.
“There are bigger cracks the further out you go from Deering into the hills . . .
Some lakes are cracked and the whole lake just disappears,” he adds.

From village to village along the Bering and Chukchi Sea coasts, there are
similar stories: of thinning and retreating sea ice, drying tundra, increased
storms, reduced summer rainfall, warmer winters and changes in the distribution,
migration patterns and numbers of some wildlife species. Greenpeace claims the
testimonies demonstrate that “climate change is not just a theory, it is a
reality. It is happening now, and it is having a very tangible effect on people
łŮ´Ç»ĺ˛ą˛â.”

Such statements might elicit a derisive snort from those who are sceptical of
the value of anecdotal observation. But almost without exception, the
testimonies reflect the predictions made by the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change about the kind of changes that could be expected as global
warming affects the Arctic. Subsistence cultures have a powerful understanding
of their environment—and they are acutely aware of any changes (see This
Week, 17 October, p 18). In the words of a Canadian Gwich’in Indian: “You need
to have some faith in the people. They live on the land and know what is
łó˛ą±č±č±đ˛Ôľ±˛Ô˛µ.”

Nancy Maynard, a NASA scientist who organised a recent workshop on climate
change and native cultures, argues that “it is critical to combine the wisdom of
native peoples—their historical knowledge of environmental events,
cultural perspectives, research and expertise—together with scientific
observations and research”.

Traditional knowledge can be a powerful tool in understanding and protecting
the natural world, but it is too often ignored, as are the people who possess
it. Across the globe, traditional cultures are under threat, sometimes from the
very changes they are trying to warn about. For Yup’ik and Inupiat communities,
thinning and retreating sea ice and fiercer storms make hunting and
food-gathering more dangerous and uncertain, as do changes in wildlife
populations and the availability of plants and berries. Storm-induced erosion
threatens several coastal villages: on remote Little Diomede Island, melting
permafrost is prompting landslides that threaten to obliterate the village.

Alaska Natives can see that their environment is changing and that their way
of life is under threat. And they want the rest of the world to pay attention to
what they have to say. They are sounding the alarm. For our sake, as well as
theirs, we would do well to pay careful attention.

Black guillemots live right across the higher latitudes of the northern
hemisphere. Since the early 17th century, however, they have not colonised
northern parts of Alaska because there is too much snow there. The birds need at
least 80 consecutive days without snow to make nests and fledge their young.

George Divoky of the Institute of Arctic Biology at the University of Alaska
in Fairbanks, who has been studying the sea birds for almost three decades, says
that from the late 1960s warmer temperatures in the Arctic caused snow to melt
earlier in the spring. This gives the birds a better choice of nesting sites and
a longer period in which to breed and nest.

In 1966, only one breeding pair was recorded on Alaska’s north coast. In
1972, Divoky discovered a small colony of 10 pairs on Cooper Island, near
Barrow. Between 1975 and 1990, the number of birds in the colony soared,
reaching a peak of 225 nesting pairs.

But since 1990, numbers have dropped dramatically. There are now only 110
pairs in the Cooper Island colony. The reason, says Divoky, is the reduction in
sea ice in the area—caused by higher temperatures. Black guillemots feed
on the Arctic cod that live beneath the floes. Ice-free areas harbour fewer
fish, forcing the birds to fly farther in search of food.

Divoky says the correlation between reduced snow cover and guillemot numbers
is one of the first documented biological effects of climate change in the
Arctic. Brendan Kelly, a marine biologist at the University of Alaska Southeast,
says the findings are extremely interesting, but argues that theories about
retreating sea ice remain inconclusive “because there is a lot of background
noise” in the data.

Previous research has shown that the average annual temperature of the Arctic
has increased by 1 °C over the past 40 years, but that temperatures have
changed three times as fast in Alaska and northwestern Canada as they have
elsewhere in the Arctic.

It was good to hear Gore acknowledging that global warming could be a
reality. Yet his words, however, are undermined by the fact that President Bill
Clinton’s administration is encouraging the dangerous addiction to fossil fuels
that is the primary cause of climate change. Even as they wax lyrical about the
perils of a changing climate, Clinton and Gore are presiding over the most
massive expansion of oil exploration and drilling since oil began to be pumped
through the Trans-Alaska Pipeline twenty years ago.

Only a few days before the July data was released, US Interior Secretary
Bruce Babbitt had declared that the government would be opening up almost two
million hectares acres of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A) to oil
exploration. Set aside in 1923 for use in a national emergency, the
NPR-A—a 9.3-million-hectares wilderness in the Alaskan northwest—has
not been meaningfully drilled since.

So why open it up now? Certainly not because anybody needs the oil. There is
a glut of crude oil around the world. The 15 major oil and gas fields in
production off Alaska’s North Slope contain an estimated 17.7 billion barrels of
oil; there may be as many as 25 billion barrels beneath the as yet barely tapped
West Sak field. BP says that “the potential for adding new oil reserves on the
North Slope over the next decade amounts to 5 billion barrels . . . Nearly all .
. . will come from known resources in or adjacent to existing fields.”

But when Tony Knowles took office in 1994 as Alaska’s governor, he declared
“a new era of partnership between the oil industry and the state”. Alaska’s
economy and politics are so tightly intertwined with oil that what the industry
wants it generally gets.

The expansion is fuelled by a slew of government subsidies. According to a
report produced for Greenpeace by the Massachusetts-based consulting firm
Industrial Economics says, the federal government provides between about
$5 billion and $12 billion a year in subsidies to the oil industry
in the form of tax breaks, maintenance of coastal and inland shipping routes and
taxpayer underwriting of oil companies’ insurance and liability policies. Add in
the cost of defending supplies from the Gulf in particular, and the amount rises
by about $20 billion.

Eventually, no matter how much the industry is subsidised or how many new
fields are opened, the oil will run out. BP presumably knows that too, which is
why it has hedged its bets and is now the world’s biggest solar-energy company.
Fossil fuel use is not going to end today, or tomorrow, or even 30 years from
now. But if global warming is to be arrested, the world—and in particular
the US—does need to burn a great deal less of it. There is no better time
to start doing so than the present, and one way to encourage that transition,
and promote energy efficiency, is to provide massive support for
commercialisation of alternatives.

A truly bold administration, one which was as genuinely committed to reducing
fossil-fuel use as Clinton and Gore claim to be, would call for a levelling of
the playing field: shifting current oil subsidies into the development of
alternative energy technologies—and, in the meantime, a freeze on all new
exploration and drilling.

No matter that Congress would declare such an initiative dead on arrival. It
would send a powerful statement that the White House is serious about addressing
the problem of climate change and is prepared to take a stand against the oil
industry to do so. Without meaningful action to back them up, the
administration’s proclamations on global warming are just more hot air.

Although native to Alaska, the western black-headed budworm, Acleris
gloverana, has only recently become so lethal to trees. After hatching, it
burrows its way into the buds of sitka spruce and ties them shut with silk. The
larvae feed on the buds through the spring, and if conditions are favourable
they emerge en masse as caterpillars in the summer, swarming over the trees and
eating their needles, which hampers growth or kills the tree.

The budworm is not the only threat to Alaskan coniferous forests. In recent
decades, the spruce bark beetle, Dendroctonus rufipennis, has killed
1.3 million hectares of sitka/white spruce hybrids. The beetle uses its antennae
to detect subtle chemical signals from spruce trees and lays its eggs in those
that are slightly stressed or weakened. It then emits pheromones that attract
more beetles
(This Week, 24 January, p 22).

Several researchers believe the plagues of bark beetles and budworms in
Alaska are tied to a changing climate. Writing in the journal Western
Forester (vol 42, p 8), Ed Holstein and Roger Burnside, ecologists with the
US Forest Service in Portland, note that “there has been a significant warming
trend throughout south-central and interior Alaska for at least 60 years”.

Meanwhile Glenn Juday, a forest ecologist at the University of Alaska at
Fairbanks, points out that recent warm summers have allowed the bark beetle to
halve the length of its life cycle from two years to one. At the same time,
argues Juday, warmer, drier conditions are stressing and weakening trees, making
them more vulnerable to insect attack.

The most recent outbreaks of budworms and bark beetles began after an
exceptionally warm, dry summer in 1993. Numbers declined after a relatively
cool, moist year in 1995, but are now rising again after a warm 1997. The UN’s
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has predicted earlier springs and
warmer, drier summers in Arctic and sub-Arctic regions in coming years. It says
that a combination of insect damage, fires and other climate-induced changes
could lead to a loss of up to 65 per cent of the world’s northern forests.

But this number, though small, is more than three times as many as were
killed just a few years ago. By calling their whaling “scientific research”, or
by whaling under objection to the moratorium decision, the remaining whaling
countries are able to kill as many whales as they please, however much the IWC
protests.

So, in reality, the whaling debate has reached an impasse, with anti-whalers
vehemently insisting that there must be no return to commercial whaling, while
the remaining whaling nations merrily carry on killing more and more whales for
commercial purposes anyway.

At the most recent IWC meeting, in Monaco in September 1997, the commissioner
for Ireland, Michael Canny, tabled a proposal for breaking this deadlock (This
Week, 25 October 1997, p 12 and 1 November 1997, p 12). The so-called “Irish
initiative” proposed that the IWC’s draft Revised Management Procedure (RMP) be
adopted. This is a highly conservative management regime which even most
conservationist members of the IWC’s Scientific Committee can embrace. It is
part of a broader Revised Management Scheme (RMS) that would include such
elements as a compulsory international observer scheme. Under Canny’s proposal,
scientific whaling would also be phased out, catches allowed only for local
consumption, and commercial quotas restricted to the coastal waters of those
countries which are presently killing whales (Norway and Japan).

It seems like a good deal for everyone. Japan and Norway lose whaling on the
high seas and the opportunity for limitless “scientific whaling” quotas, but
receive officially sanctioned quotas for their coastal whaling communities.
Meanwhile, the number of whales being killed worldwide decreases and the whaling
that remains comes under much tighter international control.

But even before the full details became available, most anti-whaling
organisations have rushed to denounce the Irish proposal, hissing at the implied
compromise of a return to commercial whaling, as if unconcerned that commercial
whaling is already rapidly increasing under their noses.

These groups object to Canny’s proposal on the grounds that it would lead to
an explosion of coastal whaling everywhere, and also that because whales migrate
between coastal waters and the high seas, it would open up almost all whale
populations to exploitation.

But the proposal specifically calls for the restriction of any future whaling
to Norway and Japan. Even if that clause did somehow fall by the wayside, the
RMP requires any country that wishes to start whaling to finance and conduct
several years’ worth of expensive surveys, which must then be analysed and
approved by the IWC’s Scientific Committee before it even considers whether any
quotas can be set. Finally, any such quota would be based on the number of
whales counted in the small areas where whaling would be allowed, not on the
population as a whole.

Add all these factors together, throw in the local consumption
proposal—removing the possibility of selling any whalemeat to Japan, and
hence the rationale for Japan to support the establishment of whaling fleets by
other countries—and the incentive and opportunity for coastal whaling
outside Japan and Norway diminish significantly.

At the very least, the Irish proposal puts the whalers on the defensive. For
years, Japan and Norway have been claiming that they want the RMP implemented,
and commercial whaling resumed, to alleviate economic and cultural hardships
suffered by their coastal communities. Some experienced IWC observers suspect
that, in fact, this is a sham—the whalers realise that the RMP/RMS would
be more restrictive than the status quo, and they are less interested in
providing a few whales for their coastal people than they are in gaining the
opportunity to catch many whales on the high seas.

At best, Canny’s proposal could provide a way forward that would allow
environmentalists to reclaim the scientific high ground, and put a lid on
commercial whaling for good. If environmentalists are serious about wanting to
stop whales from being killed, and if they want to look sensible and scientific
about doing so, then this is a deal that they should be embracing.

AS THE Algonorth plies its trade, ferrying grain and iron ore across
North America’s Great Lakes, it looks just like any other bulk carrier. But for
the rest of this year the vessel will host an experiment that could put a stop
to the invasions of alien species that are decimating marine habitats.

At any time, according to some estimates, more than 3000 species of plant and
animal life are being transported around the globe in the seawater ballast that
ships take on board to improve their stability. When ships discharge that
ballast at their ports of call, these organisms, which include microscopic
plankton and larvae, are dumped. If they gain a foothold in their new
surroundings, they can cause chaos.

For example, the comb jelly Mnemiopsis leidyi, a native of the US
Atlantic coast, was introduced to the Black and Azov Seas in the early 1980s and
soon became the dominant species, causing the collapse of the local fisheries.
The zebra mussel Dreissena polymorpha, introduced into the Great Lakes
from Europe in 1988, has spread and is blocking industrial water intake
pipes.

The Algonorth experiment aims to address the problem by filtering water as it
is taken on board. The ship is carrying specially-designed ballast pumps fitted
with two filters: a coarse mesh of 250 micrometres and a fine 25-micrometre
mesh. This should filter out even algal cysts—hardy spore-like cells which
can divide to produce blooms of plankton. The filtered water will then be passed
into a 22 000-litre ballast tank and sampled for organisms with a plankton net.
For comparison, unfiltered water will be pumped into a similar tank.

The first results are expected in a few months. If they are promising, the
researchers involved will press shipping companies to use the system. “I’d love
it if the industry began building and using a commercial version of this
filter,” says project head Allegra Cangelosi of the Northeast-Midwest Institute,
a nonprofit research institute in Washington DC.

Glen Nekvasil of the Ohio-based Lake Carriers’ Association believes that
shipping firms would be willing to adopt the system. However, he suspects that
other measures, such as treatment with ultraviolet light and heat, may be
required to completely solve the problem.