28 July 2013 Climate Change: Seeing, Understanding, and Teaching

Alaskans watch fireweed as a sign of summers’ end much like we in Western North Carolina wait for the walnut trees to leaf out before planting warm season gardens. Fireweed is a beautiful pink flower that blooms from the bottom up. The natives say that when the blooms reach the top of the flower spike, summers’ end will soon follow.

Like signs of the season, signs of climate change can be read and understood as you learn how to read the landscape. Just after the 4th of July weekend, it was my great pleasure to attend and assist with a climate change course for teachers in Denali National Park and Preserve. The class was sponsored by Alaska Geographic, located at the Murie Science and Learning Center (MSLC) in Denali. Dave Schirokauer, Denali’s Physical Science and Social Science Program Manager, and Sarah Bartholow, PolarTREC Education Project Manager from the Arctic Research Consortium of the United States, were our leaders and course experts.

Our goals were to learn to recognize and observe evidence of climate change in the National Park, discuss the drivers of this change in the subarctic environment, and exchange ideas on how to work climate change topics into our existing curricula.

One great tool for our class was a series of photographs taken in the past, compared to photographs taken in the present day. The method, called repeat or comparative photography, has scientists looking at photographs taken 50 to 80 years ago and comparing them to photos taken from the same vantage spots today.

Of course, early Denali visitors and managers took pictures of and wrote notes about the beautiful landscapes they saw just as we enjoy doing today. Many of the photographs are of Denali’s iconic glaciers, such as the Muldrow and Sunset glaciers. These historical photographs are compared to present day photos, carefully relocated and re-created at the original scene. This visual information, along with complex volume and position measurements, helps scientists piece together evidence of climate change in Denali. The data and photos support a general receding trend of Denali’s glaciers. In fact, comprehensive measurements indicate retreat on all measured glaciers, averaging nearly 66 feet per year. Quoted from: Melting Denali: Effects of Climate ChangeA statistically significant variation in either the mean state of the climate or the mean variability of the climate that persists for an extended period (typically 10 years or more). Climate change may result from such factors as changes in solar activity, long-period changes in the Earth's orbital elements, natural internal processes of the climate system, or anthropogenic forcing (for example, increasing atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases). on the Glaciers of Denali National Park and Preserve
I am working on an example of repeat photography I found while walking along an interpretive trail near the Savage River Campground. In these two pictures, maybe you can see how the tree originally photographed has grown.

An image from today:

I wonder how this image will change in the coming years.

We spent a considerable amount of time with these photos, not only of glaciers but of generally scenic landscapes. In many, we were able to distinguish a change in amount and type of foliage in the photos; great sweeping grasslands giving way to shrubs and small trees seemed fairly common. You can look at striking photo pairs similar to the ones we studied on one of the Park’s many handy fact sheets entitled entitled Climate ChangeA statistically significant variation in either the mean state of the climate or the mean variability of the climate that persists for an extended period (typically 10 years or more). Climate change may result from such factors as changes in solar activity, long-period changes in the Earth's orbital elements, natural internal processes of the climate system, or anthropogenic forcing (for example, increasing atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases). Related Vegetation Changes. With Dave Schirokauer, we were privy to how Park management looks at changing ecosystems as they strive to manage Denali for all its flora and fauna, including Dall Sheep and caribou. Dave was a fantastic resource, offering insight into management issues regarding climate change, and able to relate stories of comparable management issues and approaches to their solutions. Best of all, he was eager to share his knowledge with us and openly discuss the many questions we had.

The great thing about using the repeat photography was that it required us to travel to many different places in the Park! We traveled in a roomy van to get to particular climate change hotspots in the park.

We also were able to go hiking every day, truly an authentic Denali experience! One of my favorite hikes took us away from the road and traffic, and as we filed along in the misty rain, we kept an eye out for wildlife. Scanning the ridge for Dall Sheep, we found out we seemed to be making the day more interesting for some curious caribou.

I thought that was pretty cool, because most of the caribou we saw paid us very little attention.

This class for teachers offered by the Murie Science and Learning Center (MSLC) was set up at a neat field camp, complete with tent cabins, a meeting yurt, and cooking facilities.

We were extraordinarily fortunate to have Nan Eagleson accompany our trip as cook and driver. Nan is an expert naturalist on all things Denali, especially birds, and has co-authored the book: Birds of Denali. She leads other classes for the MSLC, and her sharing of knowledge about the flowers and birds was truly a gift. I was really amazed as she watched a pika carrying hay to his winter lair, deftly identifying the tiny plants he was carrying as she observed through her binoculars.

Interwoven throughout the class, we teachers discussed opportunities in our classrooms for bringing climate change knowledge to our students. I was able to share my PolarTREC lesson plan on phenologyThe Plot Thickens, which is basically the study of the natural progression of life cycle events.

For plants, this can include flowering times, leaf out, onset of leaf color, and end of season leaf fall. These events are closely tied to climate factors such as temperature and moisture; phenology has become an important tool for climate scientists. At camp we set up sampling plots in order to get a feel for the protocol.

Hopefully a few teachers will have students setting up phenology plots in their schoolyards this fall! Our students can benefit from analyzing repeat photography records, possibly creating their own images for future use. I particularly enjoyed the fact sheets, and hope to have my students creating these on topics they will be researching. Daily discussions allowed for us to practice talking about climate change with our students and parents, and we quickly bonded into a learning community to share ideas with each other as we take our new knowledge back to our classrooms. I am honored to know such dedicated, knowledgeable, and professional teachers!

Once again, thanks so much to PolarTREC and the Arctic Research Consortium of the United States. I am so grateful to have been chosen as a PolarTREC teacher, and am finding that my PolarTREC experience is constantly guiding me as I strive to truly share the nature and beauty of science with the students in my classrooms.

To learn more about Alaskan Fireweed, read John Wood’s PolarTREC journal: The Alaskan Fireweed For more fact sheets on Denali: Fact Sheets – Denali National Park and Preserve