Arctic island land is tearing apart! Because of
melting ice
On Qikiqtaruk Island, off the coast of Canada, researchers working on the front lines of climate change are finding that its rich ecosystem is being swallowed up by melting permafrost.
This past summer, the Western Arctic experienced scorching heat, thick smoke from Canadian wildfires, and mosquitoes struggling to survive in the sunless conditions. Researchers on Qikiqtaruk Island are doing their best to help.
On a late July afternoon, a team of Canadian researchers dived into the Beaufort Sea and spent nearly two hours swimming in the water. After resting on the beach, they saw the island’s massive lump of land slowly sink into the ocean.
“The land is giving us clues about what’s coming,” said Richard Gordon, a senior ranger. “A few days ago we had lots of clear water, but in the last few days there hasn’t been any rain. You look up and you see blue skies.”
“We now know that all the ice in the permafrost has melted. The signs are there, but we just don’t know it.”
After Canadian researchers watched the island’s massive chunks of land slowly slide into the ocean, more than 700 landslides occurred across the island, ripping open tundra (a biome where tree growth is limited by low temperatures and a short growing season — temperatures so low that water can freeze) in more than 700 places. Some collapsed quickly, ripping the soil away with a damp thud. Others were slower, with the ground “rippled and carpeted” down the hillsides, said Isla Myers-Smith, an ecology professor at the University of British Columbia.
The team has been uncovering the rapid changes to the tundra using a series of drones and working closely with Inuvialuit rangers as they race to understand the implications of those changes. A combination of sea level rise, landslides and flooding is literally eroding the surrounding landscape, making studies on the island, which hints at a turbulent future for the western Arctic, all the more difficult.
Qikiqtaruk Island, located off the coast of Canada, is an island formed by sediment and permafrost that has been deposited since the last ice age. Although small, the island is home to a variety of ecosystems, including land animals, aquatic animals, and plants.
With rising global temperatures, the tundra is rapidly “greening up,” killing off cottonwoods, mosses and lichens that take hundreds or sometimes thousands of years to grow, but new plant species are also emerging. However, the lush and green Arctic has come at a price: the lives of animals. The open spaces of the tundra, favored by the lichens they love to eat, are being replaced by shrubs. The American golden plover, a shorebird that flies from the Arctic to southern South America every year, is facing habitat loss as denser vegetation encroaches on the open spaces it loves.
Qikiqtaruk Island now has numerous sinkholes because the permafrost has thawed and is no longer able to support the topsoil. The increased landslides have not only damaged the ecosystem, but also made studying the island even more difficult. Bush planes are unable to land on the island because of the many puddles, and thick fog blanketed the bay, preventing helicopters from taking off for days. Unpredictable storms have also prevented boats from reaching the island. In mid-August this year, Team Shrub researchers were stranded for another 12 days.
References:
Related posts:
