Send this article to Promobot

CDC-funded program will create climate change observers in villages

March 17th 7:35 pm | Alex DeMarban Print this article   Email this article   Create a Shortlink for this article

Alaska Natives once peered west, serving as the nation's eyes and ears against Japanese invasion during World War II.

Now, a new group of village sentinels is being asked to step forward, this time to observe climate change on the country's remote edges.

Dozens of them across Alaska will document changes in weather, harvesting, health, plus food and water safety, under a $250,000 project funded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.

The 'sentinel surveillance system,' created by the Institute for Circumpolar Health Studies at the University of Alaska Anchorage, will collect standard information from eight villages in Southeast, Interior and Northwest Alaska.

By collecting the same information across the state over a one-year period, the project will paint a possible preview of climate-change effects in other villages.

Surveillance systems are used to warn against disease outbreaks, such as pandemic flu in Alaska. This surveillance system, dubbed Community Action for Recording Effects of Climate Change, will be the first connecting climate change and health, said David Driscoll, institute director.

Over the last several decades, Alaska has warmed twice as fast as the rest of the country. But, in isolated villages, some effects of that warming may have gone unnoticed by the scientific world.

The study could help fill in those gaps.

Tenaya Sunbury, the project's program manager, will travel to rural Alaska this spring to recruit as many as 12 observers in each village.

The observers will answer a series of questions each month for one year. They'll also have the chance to interpret what they're seeing and provide historical perspective.

"How often have you or people in your community seen changes to plants or animals compared to what you would normally expect," goes one such question.

Here's another question: In the past 30 days, have you (or people you know in the community) experienced three or more of the following five symptoms 12 - 36 hours after eating fermented or dried foods: Nausea or vomiting, Trouble swallowing, Double vision, Dilated or unreactive pupils, Dry throat or mouth.

Sunbury will compare their observations to long-term data, such as for weather, when that information is available. She'll also compare it to data from other Arctic countries.

Some villagers have been collecting information on their own for years, recording daily temperatures or snapping photos of eroding coasts, she said. Researchers plan to incorporate that information into the project.

Separate studies of the Northwest villages of Point Hope and Kivalina, done by the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, suggest that global warming has produced rapid change.

For example, tree lines are moving north and beavers have followed, which may have led to more cases of giardia. Algae blooms and collapsing river banks have dirtied water sources. And ice cellars are melting, causing whale meat to rot.

The UAA institute will work with the health consortium to recruit observers in those two Northwest communities, as well as in Noatak, another village in the region.

Sunbury and others plan to meet with community representatives in Point Hope on April 12 and 13, in Kivalina on April 13 and 14 and in Noatak on April 14 and 15.

In Southeast, the institute is working with Alaska Community Services to find observers in Angoon and Ketchikan.

In the Interior, the University of Alaska Fairbanks will help find observers in Anderson, Healy and Cantwell.

The observers will get $20 for each surveys they complete monthly during the 12 month period.

For more information, contact Tenaya Sunbury at 855-786-6598 or afts2@uaa.alaska.edu.

 

Alex DeMarban can be reached at alex@alaskanewspapers.com

Copyright 2013 The Arctic Sounder is a publication of Alaska Media, LLC. This article is © 2013 and limited reproduction rights for personal use are granted for this printing only. This article, in any form, may not be further reproduced without written permission of the publisher and owner, including duplication for not-for-profit purposes. Portions of this article may belong to other agencies; those sections are reproduced here with permission and Alaska Media, LLC makes no provisions for further distribution.