23-25 September 2019, Charlottesville: Bridging Science, Art, and Community in the New Arctic

[Daniel-Mietchen]

as per https://eri.virginia.edu/event/bridging-science-art-and-community-in-the-new-arctic/

[Daniel-Mietchen]

My poster abstract sits at https://github.com/Daniel-Mietchen/events/blob/master/New-Arctic-Bridging.md .

[Daniel-Mietchen]

It's starting with an acknowledgement of the land.

Apparently no hashtag and just two tweets on the matter so far.

Plug for the Arctic Design Group

• https://arcticdesigngroup.org/

Plug for Inuit art gallery on Wednesday afternoon

First mention of data comes from someone making a plug for musical activities as part of the event.

• Anna Liljedahl

  • ice wedges as an indicator of permafrost degradation
  • 
    • see also pingo
  • Witharana et al. (unpublished) using deep learning to study ice wedge polygons around the Arctic
  • Poster "Permafrost Discovery Gateway"

• Arctic Youth Ambassador – Eben Hopson (Utqiagvik)

  • mentions that suicide rates are very high all around the Arctic due to difficulties adapting to an environment that is so rapidly changing
  • frequently uses the term solastalgia in this context

• Craig Tweedie

  • Arctic coasts are about 1/3 of global coastline
  • much of that is unlithified permafrost, i.e. very vulnerable to warming
  • shows animation of temperature anomalies
  • shows videos of coastline with and without ice, which acts as a barrier to waves and thus protects the shoreline
  • warming brings about more damage to the coastline, especially due to storms
  • thermo-abrasive erosion
  • erosion by thermo-denudation
  • erosion also increasingly affects human settlements and cultural sites, e.g. hunting huts or graveyards
  • http://barrowmapped.org/
  • land put aside specifically to enable research
  • integration with historic shoreline data (e.g. aerial / satellite images but also coastal surveys) since 1955
  • highest erosion rates occurred over the last three years
  • maps at http://barrowmapped.org/ provide before/ after views that can stimulate cross-generational conversations
  • also using LIDAR data
  • in closing, he thanks the community for access to their lands to perform this research

• Arctic Youth Ambassadors – Carter Price (Unalaska)

  • gives around a brochure about the Inuit Circumpolar Council
  • several side remarks about kayak culture
  • e.g. that since there are no trees, people have to wait for some suitable ones to wash up on the shore
  • algal blooms in the bays

[Daniel-Mietchen]

Performance by Eighth Blackbird, whose Wikipedia article did not have an image yet, so I took one.

[Daniel-Mietchen]

Christina Bonsell on the Beaufort Lagoon Ecosystems LTER

• mentioned that they found a species of clam living below the ice at at -9°C and elevated salinity
  • I asked her for details
• doing student projects as well
  • one of these involved building a xylophone out of ice

Arctic Youth Ambassador – Gabriel Stenek (Shishmaref)

• "climate change is the biggest threat to who we are and to our culture"
  • "I don't have much else to say"

[Daniel-Mietchen]

Donald A. "Skip" Walker, University of Alaska Fairbanks

• interactions between human-built infrastructure (e.g. roads, oil wells and gas extraction) and the Arctic environment, especially around regional climate, permafrost and vegetation
• National Petroleum Reserve
• change mapping
  • difference between direct and indirect environmental impacts of infrastructure
• thermokarst

[Daniel-Mietchen]

Lars Nelson, North Slope Borough

• elaborates on challenges to build and maintain infrastructure in the region, e.g. sewage for a single house

[Daniel-Mietchen]

Arctic Youth Ambassador – Kate McWilliams (Bethel)

• grew up in Alaska and became conscious of what that means when she went to college in California
• waste management means mainly landfill
• lots of communities in Alaska lack tap water and sewage

[Daniel-Mietchen]

Artic Youth Ambassador – Janelle Trowbridge (Nome)

• sailed through the Northwest Passage with her family when she was a kid

[Daniel-Mietchen]

Martin Jeffries, Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory

• mentioned Science March and showed the sign he held
• mentioned Arctic Research Plan
  • https://www.iarpccollaborations.org/plan/index.html
• IARPC has a Diversity and Inclusion working group

[Daniel-Mietchen]

Geneviève Vachon, Laval University

• co-creation/ co-production of research
  • e.g. on adaptive housing
• online decision support tool for local communities https://www.innuassia-um.org/

[Daniel-Mietchen]

Arctic Youth Ambassador – Cade Terada (Unalaska)

• lively report on how it is like to grow up in a fishing community in Alaska
  • e.g. not having candy anywhere in the village for two weeks if a cruise ship has passed by and tourists bought them all up

[Daniel-Mietchen]

Day 2 started with a panel discussion on "Land", which did involve the audience and went off into many wide directions, including fundamental questioning of science, art and engagement with indigenous communities.

Key point for me: someone said that we should find better ways to prioritize what we do research on, that this should be mapped more closely to what society actually needs, without replacing basic research for applied research, as is all too often the case. To me, the SDGs could provide such a mechanism to assist prioritization. They have their own problems, but they cover most of the essentials.

Greta Thunberg's "How dare you" speech at the UN from yesterday was also mentioned, leaving some in the audience puzzled, others energized.

[Daniel-Mietchen]

Next discussion session: Oceans

Some communities are wary of scientists coming in, due to past experience with researchers just "parachuting in" and never giving back to the communities.

Some communities, though, do actively encourage scientists to come in, and they guide them in terms of how to engage with the community.

• example of one place where they actually made a welcome video for the scientists
• example from another community where there was a researcher that simply listened to observations made by the hunters or fishermen, and started to develop research ideas on that basis, rather than coming to lecture them or, worse, not interacting with them at all

Several contributors to the discussion highlighted the importance of co-production of knowledge, and that researchers often miss opportunities here.

[Daniel-Mietchen]

Next discussion: infrastructure

• a few years ago, FEMA released a report on critical infrastructure
  • it did not mention Alaska or the Arctic
  • some of its recommendations (e.g. evacuation via roads, staying in hotels) are not doable in current Alaska
• Cold Climate Housing Research Center

[Daniel-Mietchen]

Day 3:

• environmental acoustics/ sonification/ experimental composition based on environmental recordings
  • best part: group music activity
  • clapping/ hissing/ singing etc. , with timelines of data serving as musical scores
• wrap-up
  • I noted three observations
  • the event
    • managed to include indigenous perspectives in a genuine way throughout
    • the whole idea of data sharing is not new to environmental science but still not practiced by the teams that were presenting here
    • having the group do live sonification was a bliss
  • lots of oral references, e.g. to
  • NSF
    • Navigating the New Arctic
    • 10 Big Ideas
  • Polar Track (also NSF?) that pairs scientists with others (journalists, artists, local communities) in the Arctic
  • some IARPC doc about principles to work with indigenous communities