Abstract
Sea ice is influential in regulating energy exchanges between the ocean and the atmosphere, and has figured prominently in scientific studies of climate change and climate feedbacks. However, sea ice is also a vital component of everyday life in Inuit communities of the circumpolar Arctic. Therefore, it is important to understand the links between the potential impacts of climate change on Arctic sea ice extent, distribution, and thickness as well as the related consequences for northern coastal populations. This paper explores the relationship between sea ice and climate change from both scientific and Inuit perspectives. Based on an overview of diverse literature the experiences, methods, and goals which differentiate local and scientific sea ice knowledge are examined. These efforts are considered essential background upon which to develop more accurate assessments of community vulnerability to climate, and resulting sea ice, change. Inuit and scientific perspectives may indeed be the ideal complement when investigating the links between sea ice and climate change, but effective and appropriate conceptual bridges need to be built between the two types of expertise. The complementary nature of these knowledge systems may only be realized, in a practical sense, if significant effort is expended to: (i) understand sea ice from both Inuit and scientific perspectives, along with their underlying differences; (ii) investigate common interests or concerns; (iii) establish meaningful and reciprocal research partnerships with Inuit communities; (iv) engage in, and improve, collaborative research methods; and, (v) maintain ongoing dialogue.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
Aporta, C.: 2002, ‘Life on the ice: Understanding the codes of a changing environment’, Polar Rec. 38, 341–354.
Aporta, C.: 2004, ‘Routes, trails and tracks: Trail breaking among the Inuit of Igloolik’, Études/Inuit/Stud. 28, 9–38.
Ashford, G. and Castleden, J.: 2001, Inuit Observations on Climate Change: Final Report, Report prepared for International Institute for Sustainable Development, Winnipeg, pp. 27.
Baxter, J. and Eyles, J.: 1997, ‘Evaluating qualitative research in social geography: Establishing `Rigour’, Trans. Inst. Br. Geogr. 22, 505–525.
Baxter, J. and Eyles, J.: 1999, ‘The utility of in-depth interviews for studying the meaning of environmental risk’, Prof. Geogr. 51, 307–320.
Bennett J. and Rowley S. (2004). Uqalurait: An Oral History of Nunavut. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press.
Berkes, F.: 2002, ‘Epilogue: Making Sense of Arctic Environmental Change?’ in Krupnik. I. and Jolly, D. (eds.), The Earth is Faster Now: Indigenous Observations of Arctic Environmental Change, Arctic Research Consortium of the United States in cooperation with the Arctic Studies Center, Smithsonian Institution, Fairbanks, pp. 334–349.
Berkes, F. and Jolly, D.: 2002, ‘Adapting to climate change: Social-ecological resilience in a Canadian Western Arctic community’, Conserv. Ecol. 5, 18.
Berkes, F., Colding, J. and Folke, C.: 2000, ‘Rediscovery of traditional ecological knowledge as adaptive management’, Ecol. Appl. 10, 1251–1262.
Bielawski, E.: 1984, ‘Anthropological observations on science in the north: The role of the scientist in human development in the northwest territories’, Arctic 37, 1–6.
Bielawski, E.: 1992, ‘Inuit indigenous knowledge and science in the Arctic’, North. Perspect. 20, 5–8.
Binder, L. N. and Hanbidge, B.: 1993, ‘Aboriginal people and resource co-management’, in Inglis, J. T. (eds.), Traditional Ecological Knowledge: Concepts and Cases, International Program on Traditional Ecological Knowledge and International Development Research Centre, Ottawa, pp. 121–132.
Bintanja, R. and Oerlemans, J.: 1995, ‘The influence of the albedo-temperature feed-back on climate sensitivity’, Ann. Glaciol. 21, 353–360.
Burgess, P.: 1999, ‘Traditional knowledge', Report prepared for the Arctic Council Indigenous Peoples’ Secretariat, Copenhagen, pp. 133.
Collings, P.: 1997, ‘The cultural context of wildlife management in the Canadian North’, in Smith, E. A. and McCarter, J. (eds.), Contested Arctic: Indigenous Peoples, Industrial States, and the Circumpolar Environment, University of Washington Press, Seattle, pp. 13–40.
Colman, R.: 2003, ‘A comparison of climate feedbacks in general circulation models’, Climate Dyn. 20, 865–873.
Copley, J.: 2000, ‘The great ice mystery’, Nature 408, 634–636.
Cruikshank, J.: 2001, ‘Glaciers and Climate Change: Perspectives from oral tradition’, Arctic 54, 372–393.
Curry, J. A., Schramm, J. L. and Ebert, E. E.: 1995, ‘Sea ice-albedo climate feedback mechanism’, J. Climate 8, 240–247.
Davis, N.: 2000, ‘Arctic oceanography, sea ice, and climate’, in Nuttall, M. and Callaghan, T. V. (eds.), The Arctic: Environment, People, and Policy, Harwood Academic Publishers, Amsterdam, pp. 97–115.
Davis, A. and Wagner, J. R.: 2003, ‘Who Knows? On the importance of identifying “Experts,” when researching local ecological knowledge’, Hum. Ecol. 31, 463–489.
Demeritt, D.: 2001a, ‘The construction of global warming and the politics of science’, Ann. Assoc. Am. Geogr. 91, 307–337.
Demeritt, D.: 2001b, ‘Science and the understanding of science: A reply to Schneider’, Ann. Assoc. Am. Geogr. 91, 345–348.
Dessai, S., Adger, W. N., Hulme, M., Turnpenny, J., Köhler, J., and Warren, R.: 2004, ‘Defining and experiencing dangerous climate change’, Clim. Change 64, 11–25.
Duerden, F.: 2004, ‘Translating climate change impacts at the community level’, Arctic 57, 204–212.
Duerden, F. and Kuhn, R. G.: 1998, ‘Scale, context, and application of traditional knowledge of the Canadian north’, Polar Rec. 34, 31–38.
Eicken, H.: 2003, ‘From the Microscopic, to the Macroscopic, to the Regional Scale: Growth, Microstructure and Properties of Sea Ice’, in Thomas, D. N. and Dieckmann, G. S. (eds.) SEA ICE: An Introduction to Its Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Geology, Blackwell Science Ltd., Oxford, pp. 22–81.
Ellerby, J. H.: 2001, Working with Aboriginal Elders, Native Studies Press, Winnipeg.
Fenge, T.: 2001, ‘The inuit and climate change’, Isuma Winter, 79–85.
Ferguson, M. A. and Messier, F.: 1997, ‘Collection and analysis of traditional ecological knowledge about a population of Arctic tundra caribou’, Arctic 50, 17–28.
Ford, N.: 2000, ‘Communicating climate change from the perspective of local people: A case study from Arctic Canada’, J. Dev. Commun. 11, 92–108.
Ford, J. D. and Smit, B.: 2004, ‘A framework for assessing the vulnerability of communities in the Canadian Arctic to risks associated with climate change’, Arctic 57, 389–400.
Fox, S.: 2002, ‘These are things that are really happening: Inuit perspectives on the evidence and impacts of climate change’, in Krupnik, I. and Jolly, D. (eds.), The Earth is Faster Now: Indigenous Observations of Arctic Environmental Change, Arctic Research Consortium of the United States in cooperation with the Arctic Studies Center, Smithsonian Institution, Fairbanks, pp.12–53.
Freeman, M. M. R.: 1984, ‘Contemporary Inuit exploitation of the Sea-ice Environment’, in Sikumiut: “The People Who Use the Sea Ice,”, Canadian Arctic Resources Committee, Montréal, pp. 73–96.
Freeman, M. M. R.: 1992, ‘The nature and utility of traditional ecological knowledge’, North. Perspect. 20, 9–12.
Furgal, C. M., Innes, S. and Kovacs, K. M.: 2002a, ‘Inuit spring hunting techniques and local knowledge of the ringed seal in Arctic Bay (Ikpiarjuk), Nunavut’, Polar Res. 21, 1–16.
Furgal, C., Martin, D. and Gosselin, P.: 2002b, ‘Climate change and health in nunavik and labrador: Lessons from inuit knowledge’, in Krupnik, I. and Jolly, D. (eds.), The Earth Is Faster Now: Indigenous Observations of Arctic Environmental Change, Arctic Research Consortium of the United States in cooperation with the Arctic Studies Center, Smithsonian Institution, Fairbanks, pp. 266–299.
Furgal, C. M., Powell, S. and Myers, H.: 2005, ‘Digesting the message about contaminants and country foods in the Canadian North: A review and recommendations for future research and action’, Arctic 58, 103–114.
George, J. C., Huntington, H. P., Brewster, K., Eicken, H., Norton, D., and Glenn, R.: 2004, ‘Observations on shorefast ice dynamics in Arctic Alaska and the responses of the inupiat hunting community’, Arctic 57, 363–374.
Gilchrist, H. G. and Robertson, G. J.: 2000, ‘Observations of marine birds and mammals wintering at polynyas and ice edges in the Belcher Islands, Nunavut, Canada’, Arctic 53, 61–68.
Grumet, N. A., Wake, C. P., Mayewski, P. A., Zielinski, G. A., Whitlow, S. I., Koerner, R. M., Fisher, D.~A. and Woollett, J. M.: 2001, ‘Variability of sea-ice extent in Baffin Bay over the last millennium’, Clim. Change 49, 129–145.
Holland, M. M., Schramm, J. L. and Curry, J. A.: 1997, ‘Thermodynamic feedback processes in a single-column sea-ice-ocean model’, Ann. Glaciol. 25, 327–332.
Holland, M. M. and Bitz, C. M.: 2003, ‘Polar amplification of climate change in coupled models’, Clim. Dyn. 21, 221–232.
Holloway, G., and Sou, T.: 2002, ‘Has Arctic Sea Ice Rapidly Thinned?’, J. Clim. 15, 1691–1701.
Huntington, H. P.: 1999, ‘Traditional knowledge of the ecology of Beluga whales (Delphinapterus leucas) in the eastern Chukchi and northern Bering Seas, Alaska’, Arctic 52, 49–61.
Huntington, H. P.: 2000a, ‘Native observations capture impacts of sea ice changes’, Witness the Arctic 8, 1–2.
Huntington, H. P.: 2000b, ‘Using traditional ecological knowledge in science: methods and applications’, Ecol. Appl. 10, 1270–1274.
Huntington, H. P.: 2002, ‘Preface: Human understanding and understanding humans in the arctic system’, in Krupnik, I. and Jolly, D. (eds.), The Earth is Faster Now: Indigenous Observations of Arctic Environmental Change, Arctic Research Consortium of the United States in cooperation with the Arctic Studies Center, Smithsonian Institution, Fairbanks, pp. xxi–xxvii.
ICC: 1998, Inuit Circumpolar Conference Charter, URL: http://www.inuit.org/index.asp?lang=eng &num=209. Last accessed: August 4, 2005.
Ingram, W. J., Wilson, C. A., and Mitchell, J. F. B.: 1989, ‘Modeling climate change: An assessment of sea ice and surface albedo feedbacks’, J. Geoph. Res. 94, 8609–9622.
Johannessen, O. M., Shalina, E. V., Miles, M. W.: 1999, ‘Satellite evidence for an arctic sea ice cover in transformation’, Science 286, 1937–1939.
Jolly, D., Berkes, F., Castleden, J., Nichols, T., and the community of Sachs Harbour.: 2002, ‘We can't predict the weather like we used to: Inuvialuit observations of climate change, sachs harbour, Western Canadian Arctic’, in Krupnik, I. and Jolly, D. (eds.), The Earth is Faster Now: Indigenous Observations of Arctic Environmental Change, Arctic Research Consortium of the United States in cooperation with the Arctic Studies Center, Smithsonian Institution, Fairbanks, pp. 92– 125.
Kerr, R. A.: 1999, ‘Will the Arctic Ocean lose all its ice?’, Science 286, 1828.
Kofinas, G., with the community of Aklavik, Arctic Village, Old Crow, and Fort McPherson.: 2002, ‘Community contributions to ecological monitoring: Knowledge co-production in the, U.S.-Canada Arctic Borderlands’, in Krupnik, I. and Jolly, D. (eds.), The Earth is Faster Now: Indigenous Observations of Arctic Environmental Change, Arctic Research Consortium of the United States in cooperation with the Arctic Studies Center, Smithsonian Institution, Fairbanks, pp. 54–91.
Krupnik, I.: 2002, ‘Watching ice and weather our way: Some lessons from Yupik observations of sea ice and weather on St. Lawrence Island, Alaska’, in Krupnik, I. and Jolly, D. (eds.), The Earth is Faster Now: Indigenous Observations of Arctic Environmental Change, Arctic Research Consortium of the United States in cooperation with the Arctic Studies Center, Smithsonian Institution, Fairbanks, pp. 156–197.
Kuhn, R. and Duerden, F.: 1996, ‘A review of traditional environmental knowledge: An interdisciplinary canadian perspective’, Culture 16, 71–84.
Laidler, G. J.: 2004, ‘Interpreting climate models: A review of the interplay between sea ice and climate’, in Danby, R. K., Castleden, H., Giles, A. R., and Rausch, J. (eds.), Breaking the Ice: Proceedings of a Conference on Northern Studies, Association of Canadian Universities for Northern Studies, Edmonton, October 24–25, 2003, pp. 90–106.
Ledley, T. S.: 1988, ‘A coupled energy balance climate-sea ice model: Impact of sea ice and leads on climate’, J. Geoph. Res. 93, 15,919–15,932.
Lemke, F., Harder, M. and Hilmer, M.: 2000, ‘The response of arctic sea ice to global change’, Clim. Change 46, 277–287.
Lincoln, Y. and Guba, E.: 1985, Naturalistic Inquiry, Sage, Beverly Hills.
Lock, G. S. H.: 1990, The Growth and Decay of Ice, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Lohmenn, G. and Gerdes, R.: 1998, ‘Sea ice effects on the sensitivity of the thermohaline circulation’, J. Clim. 11, 2789–2803.
MacDonald, J.: 1998, The Arctic Sky: Inuit Astronomy, Star Lore, and Legend, The Royal Ontario Museum and the Nunavut Research Institute, Toronto and Iqaluit.
Manning, M. R.: 2003, ‘The difficulty of communicating uncertainty: An editorial comment’, Clim. Change 61, 9–16.
McDonald Fleming, M.: 1992, ‘Reindeer management in Canada's Belcher Islands: Documenting and using traditional environmental knowledge’, in Johnson, M. (ed.), International Development Research Centre and the Dene Cultural Institute, Ottawa, pp. 69–87.
McDonald, M., Arragutainaq, L., and Novalinga, Z. (eds.): 1997, Voices from the Bay – Traditional Ecological Knowledge of Inuit and Cree in the Hudson Bay Bioregion, Canadian Arctic Resources Committee and the Municipality of Sanikiluaq, Ottawa and Sanikiluaq, p. 98.
McGrath, J.: 2003, ‘Interview: Janet McGrath on IQ’, Meridian Spring/Summer, 5–9.
McGregor, D.: 2000, ‘The state of traditional ecological knowledge research in Canada: A critique of current theory and practice’, in Laliberte, R. F., Settee, P., Waldram, J. B., Innes, R., Macdougall, B., McBain, L., and Barron, F. L. (eds.), Expressions in Canadian Native Studies, University of Saskatchewan Extension Press, Saskatoon, pp. 436–458.
Moller, H., Berkes, F. L., Lyver, P. O., and Kislalioglu, M.: 2004, ‘Combining science and traditional ecological knowledge: Monitoring populations for co-management’, Ecol. Soc. 9, 15 [online].
Mysak, L. A. and Manak, D. K.: 1989, ‘Arctic sea-ice extent and anomalies, 1953–1984’, Atmosphere-Ocean 27, 376–405.
Nadasdy, P.: 1999, ‘The politics of TEK: Power and the “integration,” of knowledge’, Arctic Anthropol. 36, 1–18.
Nakashima, D. J.: 1993, ‘Astute observers on the sea ice edge: Inuit knowledge as a basis for Arctic Co-Management’, in Inglis, J. T. (ed.), Traditional Ecological Knowledge: Concepts and Cases, International Program on Traditional Ecological Knowledge and International Development Research Centre, Ottawa, pp. 99–110.
Nelson, R. K.: 1969, Hunters of the Northern Ice, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, p. 429.
Nichols, T., Berkes, F., Jolly, D., Snow, N. B., and The Community of Sachs Harbour.: 2004, ‘Climate Change and Sea Ice: Local Observations from the Canadian Western Arctic’, Arctic 57, 68–79.
Nickels, S., Furgal, C., Castleden, J., Moss-Davies, P., Buell, M., Armstrong, B., Dillon, D., and Fonger, R.: 2002, ‘Putting the human face on climate change through community workshops: Inuit knowledge, partnerships, and research’, in Krupnik, I. and Jolly, D. (eds.), The Earth Is Faster Now: Indigenous Observations of Arctic Environmental Change, Arctic Research Consortium of the United States, Fairbanks, pp. 301–333.
Norton, D.: 2002, ‘Coastal sea ice watch: Private confessions of a convert to indigenous knowledge’, in Krupnik, I. and Jolly, D. (eds.), The Earth is Faster Now: Indigenous Observations of Arctic Environmental Change, Arctic Research Consortium of the United States in cooperation with the Arctic Studies Center, Smithsonian Institution, Fairbanks, pp. 126–155.
Nuttall, M.: 1998, ‘Critical reflections on knowledge gathering in the Arctic’, in Dorais, L.-J., Nagy, M., and Muller-Wille, L. (eds.), Aboriginal Environmental Knowledge in the North, Université Laval, Québec, pp. 21–35.
Oozeva, C., Noongwook, C., Noongwook, G., Alowa, C., and Krupnik, I.: 2004, Watching Ice and Weather Our Way, Arctic Studies Center, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., p. 207.
Parkinson, C. L., Cavalieri, D. J., Gloerson, P., Zwally, J. J., and Comiso, J.: 1999, ‘Arctic sea ice extents, areas, and trends, 1978–1996’, J. Geoph. Res. 104, 20,837–20,856.
Pelly, D. F.: 2001, Sacred Hunt: A Portrait of the Relationship Between Seals and Inuit. University of Washington Press and Greystone Books, Seattle, p. 127.
Poirier, P. and Brooke, L.: 2000, ‘Inuit perceptions of contaminants and environmental knowledge in Salluit, Nunavik’, Arctic Anthropol. 37, 78–91.
Richard, P. R., and Pike, D. G.: 1993, ‘Small whale co-management in the Eastern Canadian Arctic: A case history and analysis’, Arctic 46, 138–143.
Richardson, B.: 1993, ‘Harvesting traditional knowledge: The Hudson Bay Program is teaching scientists how to see the environment through the Natives' eyes’, Nat. Can. 22, 30–37.
Riedlinger, D. and Berkes, F.: 2001, ‘Contributions of traditional knowledge to understanding climate change in the Canadian Arctic’, Polar Rec. 37, 315–328.
Riewe, R.: 1991, ‘Inuit use of the sea ice’, Arctic Alpine Res. 23, 3–10.
Robards, M. and Alessa, L.: 2004, ‘Timescapes of community resilience and vulnerability in the circumpolar North’, Arctic 57, 415427.
Rodon T. (1998). Co-management and self-determination in Nunavut. Polar Geography, 22, 119–135.
Saenko, O. A., Flato, G. M., and Weaver, A. J.: 2002, ‘Improved representation of sea-ice processes in climate models’, Atmosphere-Ocean 40, 21–43.
Schneider, S. H.: 2001, ‘A constructive deconstruction of deconstructionists: A response to demeritt’, Ann. Assoc. Am. Geogr. 91, 338–344.
Searles, E.: 2001, ‘Interpersonal politics, social science research and the construction of Inuit identity’, Études/Inuit/Studies 25, 101–119.
Stern, P.: 1999, ‘Learning to be smart: An exploration of the culture of intelligence in a Canadian Inuit Community’, Am. Anthropol. 101, 502–514.
Stevenson, M. G.: 1996, ‘Indigenous knowledge in environmental assessment’, Arctic 49, 278– 291.
Thomas D. N. and Dieckmann G. S. (2003). Glossary. SEA ICE: An Introduction to its Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Geology. Oxford: Blackwell Science Ltd.
Thorpe, N. L.: 1998, ‘The Hiukitak School of Tuktu: Collecting Inuit ecological knowledge of caribou and calving areas through an elder-youth camp’, Arctic 51, 403–408.
Thorpe, N. L., Hakongak, N., Eyegetok, S., and the Kitikmeot Elders: 2001, Thunder on the Tundra: Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit of the Bathurst Caribou, Tuktu and Nogak Project, Ikaluktuuttiak.
Thorpe, N., Eyegetok, S., Hakongak, N., and the Kitikmeot Elders: 2002, ‘Nowadays it is not the same: Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit, climate and caribou in the Kitikmeot region of Nunavut, Canada’, in Krupnik, I. and Jolly, D. (eds.), The Earth Is Faster Now: Indigenous Observations of Arctic Environmental Change, Arctic Research Consortium of the United States in cooperation with the Arctic Studies Center, Smithsonian Institution, Fairbanks, pp. 198–239.
Usher, P. J.: 2000, ‘Traditional ecological knowledge in environmental assessment and management’, Arctic 55, 183–193.
Vellinga, M. and Wood, R. A.: 2002, ‘Global climatic impacts of a collapse of the Atlantic Thermohaline Circulation’, Clim. Change 54, 251–267.
Vinnikov, K. Y., Robock, A., Stouffer, R. J., Walsh, J. E., Parkinson, C. L., Cavalieri, D. J., Mitchell, J. F. B., Garrett, D., and Zakharov, V. F.: 1999, ‘Global warming and Northern Hemisphere sea ice extent’, Science 286, 1934–1937.
Wadhams, P.: 2000, Ice in the Ocean, Gordon and Breach Science Publishers, Cambridge.
Walsh, J. E. and Timlin, M. S.: 2003, ‘Northern Hemisphere sea ice simulations by global climate models’, Polar Res. 22, 75–82.
Weller, G.: 2000, ‘The Weather and Climate of the Arctic’, in Nuttall, M. and Callaghan, T. V. (eds.), The Arctic: Environment, People, and Policy, Harwood Academic Publishers, Amsterdam, pp. 143–160.
Wenzel, G. W.: 1991, ‘Traditional people in the modern world’, Animal Rights, Human Rights, Bellhaven Press, London, pp. 11–34.
Wenzel, G. W.: 1997, ‘Using Harvest Research in Nunavut: An example from Hall Beach’, Arctic Anthropol. 34, 18–28.
Wenzel, G. W.: 1999, ‘Traditional ecological knowledge and Inuit: Reflections on TEK research and ethics’, Arctic 52, 113–124.
Wenzel, G. W.: 2004, ‘From TEK to IQ: Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit and Inuit cultural ecology’, Arctic Anthropol. 41, 238–250.
WMO: 1970, ‘WMO sea ice nomenclature’, Report prepared for Secretariat of the World Meteorological Organization, Geneva, pp. 149.
Zamporo J: 1996, ‘Informing the fact: Inuit traditional knowledge contributes another perspective’, Geosci. Can. 23, 261–266.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Laidler, G.J. Inuit and Scientific Perspectives on the Relationship Between Sea Ice and Climate Change: The Ideal Complement?. Climatic Change 78, 407–444 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-006-9064-z
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-006-9064-z