IPY: Collaborative Research: Linking Inuit Knowledge and Local-Scale Environmental Modeling to Evaluate the Impacts of Changing Weather on Human Activities at Clyde River, Nunavut

Colorado State University, Fort Collins CO

Investigators

Abstract

Climate change affects many aspects of the environment, including weather patterns and the frequencies of various weather events and phenomena. Inuit hunters and elders in Clyde River, Nunavut, have already observed changes in wind patterns and other weather features and have concerns about other potential changes in the future. Evaluating the nature and significance of these meteorological changes requires a multi-pronged, interdisciplinary approach that merges local knowledge and observations with physically based, high-resolution (local, human-relevant scales, like 100-m), downscaling/modeling of larger-scale regional and global climate changes. This project has three objectives: (1) to document Inuit observations and understanding of meteorological change; (2) to develop numerical models and analytical tools based on meteorological and climatological data that work at the same scales and on the same parameters as Inuit observations, and; (3) to connect the results of the first two objectives, working collaboratively with Inuit to explore the practical and scientific implications of our findings for the future. The research team's approach has four components, which are carried out through four stages of the project. The components are (a) documenting Inuit observations and other local information, (b) gathering meteorological data, (c) modeling weather and related phenomena on fine spatial (e.g., 100-m) and temporal (e.g., hourly) scales, and (d) integrating the first three components. The project will connect numerical models with Inuit knowledge and observations to evaluate the nature of meteorological change and to project likely changes in the coming decades at scales, and for parameters, of relevance to Inuit. It will open a wide range of possibilities for connecting climate and weather modeling to conditions of specific human interest at appropriate spatial and temporal scales. This developed approach will be available for wide application to any human activities affected by weather, from the under-served indigenous populations of the Arctic, to commercial and industrial enterprises taking place in severe environments. The project is innovative, interdisciplinary, international, and legacy-building. It is innovative and interdisciplinary because it connects in new ways two very different disciplines that share a common interest in arctic environmental change. It is international because it involves Canadian and American participants, and includes links to several existing IPY projects. It builds a legacy because its approach has a wide range of potential applications for anyone who works extensively in the Arctic. The project addresses both NSF areas of ?Understanding Environmental Change in Polar Regions? and ?Human and Biotic Systems in Polar Regions,? and the linkages between the two. The latter is the focus of the project: we seek to determine exactly what aspects of meteorological change are or are likely to be most significant to Inuit hunters. The ways those hunters interact with their environment, particularly the role of weather conditions in their decision-making, will also shed light on the function of human systems in the Arctic, giving insight into the sensitivity of Inuit hunting activities to changes in weather and other environmental parameters.