|
|
|
|
Moving Arctic Villages
11/25/2002
Listen in RealAudio 
Hi, I'm Bryan Yeaton and you're listening to The Weather Notebook. Current thinking about the
path of Global Warming suggests that it will arrive first and foremost in polar regions.
Already, scientists are seeing distinctly warmer arctic temperatures with arctic sea ice
forming later and breaking up earlier than ever before. No where is the impact of global
warming more apparent than in the polar regions of Canada's, Quebec Province.
Provincial authorities there have been watching some houses in the Inuit village of Saluit
sink into the mud over the past few years as the permafrost beneath them begins to
melt.
Scot Nichols, environment director for the National Inuit Organization, says, "Parts of
villages are already being moved. Although there is no urgent need to evacuate Saluit, the
Quebec government is seeking relocation sites should the problem worsen.
The Secretary General of Quebec's Ministry of Public Security, George Bauchamin, says, "What
we thought wasn't possible in the past, we now look at as something we have to prepare
for."
Quebec is studying the possibility of moving entire villages in its far north. The Province
has currently identified nine areas on permafrost layers which are vulnerable to melting
should warming continue. In these areas, houses could sink into meters of once permanently
frozen mud. While there are no immediate plans to relocate these villages, the Province is
trying to find alternate locations should relocation become necessary. Such contingency plans
for the far north are only one phase of a large emergency preparedness effort by the Quebec
government as they react to the predictions of increased weather catastrophes brought on by
our changing climate.
Thanks to contributing writer Keith Heidorn for this story. The Weather Notebook is a
production of the Mount Washington Observatory and is supported by Subaru of America and the
National Science Foundation.
|
|
