S. Craig Gerlach

Arctic system on trajectory to new, seasonally ice‐free state

The Arctic system is moving toward a new state that falls outside the envelope of glacialinterglacial fl uctuations that prevailed during recent Earth history. This future Arctic is likely to have dramatically less permanent ice than exists at present. At the present rate of change, a summer ice-free Arctic Ocean within a century is a real possibility, a state not witnessed for at least a million years. The change appears to be driven largely by feedback-enhanced global climate warming, and there seem to be few, if any, processes or feedbacks within the Arctic system that are capable of altering the trajectory toward this “super interglacial” state.

Food and water security in a changing arctic climate

In the Arctic, permafrost extends up to 500 m below the ground surface, and it is generally just the top metre that thaws in summer. Lakes, rivers, and wetlands on the arctic landscape are normally not connected with groundwater in the same way that they are in temperate regions. When the surface is frozen in winter, only lakes deeper than 2 m and rivers with significant flow retain liquid water. Surface water is largely abundant in summer, when it serves as a breeding ground for fish, birds, and mammals. In winter, many mammals and birds are forced to migrate out of the Arctic. Fish must seek out lakes or rivers deep enough to provide good overwintering habitat. Humans in the Arctic rely on surface water in many ways. Surface water meets domestic needs such as drinking, cooking, and cleaning as well as subsistence and industrial demands. Indigenous communities depend on sea ice and waterways for transportation across the landscape and access to traditional country foods. The minerals, mining, and oil and gas industries also use large quantities of surface water during winter to build ice roads and maintain infrastructure. As demand for this limited, but heavily-relied-upon resource continues to increase, it is now more critical than ever to understand the impacts of climate change on food and water security in the Arctic.

The Services-Oriented Architecture: Ecosystem Services as a Framework for Diagnosing Change in Social Ecological Systems

Computational thinking (CT) is a way to solve problems and understand complex systems that draws on concepts fundamental to computer science and is well suited to the challenges that face researchers of complex, linked social-ecological systems. This paper explores CT’s usefulness to sustainability science through the application of the services-oriented architecture (SOA). The SOA is a popular organizational framework in information technology that enables businesses to describe the services they offer, including how, where, to whom, and under what terms these services are available to consumers. It provides a straightforward, scalable, and portable way to describe and organize complex business systems, with an emphasis on system controls and component interactions rather than on the system components themselves. Here, we present the SOA as a path to a more mature ecosystem services concept, in support of integrated assessment frameworks such as the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA). With the SOA we capture important interrelationships among ecosystems, ecosystem service consumers, and ecosystem service governance authorities, particularly the effects of their interactions on the viability of ecosystem services. By standardizing the description and relationships involving ecosystem services, the SOA supports a diagnostic approach for evaluating stability and change in ecosystem service use across both space and time, when influenced by drivers of social, political, and/or ecological change, whether directional or stochastic, planned or otherwise. We present here a prototype of the SOA and illustrate its utility with an example from rural Alaskan communities.

Local Perceptions of the Sustainability of Alaska’s Highly Contested Cook Inlet Salmon Fisheries

Using a mixed set of ethnographic methods including interviews and a structured survey, we evaluate local perceptions about the sustainability of salmon fisheries among fishers of the Cook Inlet region of Alaska. A majority of residents report participating in these fisheries, but we find significant disagreement about their sustainability. Household income and the types of fishing practiced both influence peoples responses, and many implicated specific user groups for overharvesting and/or for receiving unfair catch allocations. Drawing on the theoretical areas of information theory and political ecology, we argue that these findings reveal a complex interplay among the practical, social, and political aspects of how local resource users, or “local experts,” develop and communicate their assessments of ecological conditions in a context of conflict. We conclude with notes on future research as it relates to the successful design of local-management and co-management solutions, especially in settings where resources are contested by stakeholders.

Rebuilding northern foodsheds, sustainable food systems, community well-being, and food security

Background Multiple climatic, environmental and socio-economic pressures have accumulated to the point where they interfere with the ability of remote rural Alaska Native communities to achieve food security with locally harvestable food resources. The harvest of wild foods has been the historical norm, but most Alaska Native villages are transitioning to a cash economy, with increasing reliance on industrially produced, store-bought foods, and with less reliable access to and reliance on wild, country foods. While commercially available market foods provide one measure of food security, the availability and quality of market foods are subject to the vagaries and vulnerabilities of the global food system; access is dependent on ones ability to pay, is limited to what is available on the shelves of small rural stores, and, store-bought foods do not fulfill the important roles that traditional country foods play in rural communities and cultures. Country food access is also constrained by rising prices of fuel and equipment, a federal and state regulatory framework that sometimes hinders rather than helps rural subsistence users who need to access traditional food resources, a regulatory framework that is often not responsive to changes in climate, weather and seasonality, and a shifting knowledge base in younger generations about how to effectively harvest, process and store wild foods. Objective The general objective is to provide a framework for understanding the social, cultural, ecological and political dimensions of rural Alaska Native food security, and to provide information on the current trends in rural Alaska Native food systems. Design This research is based on our long-term ethnographic, subsistence and food systems work in coastal and interior Alaska. This includes research about the land mammal harvest, the Yukon River and coastal fisheries, community and village gardens, small livestock production and red meat systems that are scaled appropriately to village size and capacity, and food-system intervention strategies designed to rebuild local and rural foodsheds and to restore individual and community health. Results The contemporary cultural, economic and nutrition transition has severe consequences for the health of people and for the viability of rural communities, and in ways that are not well tracked by the conventional food security methodologies and frameworks. This article expands the discussion of food security and is premised on a holistic model that integrates the social, cultural, ecological, psychological and biomedical aspects of individual and community health. Conclusion We propose a new direction for food-system design that prioritizes the management of place-based food portfolios above the more conventional management of individual resources, one with a commitment to as much local and regional food production and/or harvest for local and regional consumption as is possible, and to community self-reliance and health for rural Alaska Natives.

TESTING THE "DICARB PROBLEM": A CASE STUDY FROM NORTH ALASKA

An assumption exists in North Alaskan archaeological literature that radiometric assays produced by the nowdefunct Dicarb Radioisotope Co. (Dicarb) are too young or more recent when compared to those produced by other laboratories. This assumption is statistically tested by comparing radiocarbon assays produced by Dicarb to those produced by Beta Analytic, Inc.; Geochron Laboratories; and the NSF-Arizona AMS Facility. The primary data set consists of radiometric and accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) assays produced from materials excavated at the Croxton site, Locality J, Tukuto Lake, northern Alaska. Statistical analyses demonstrate that 14C assays produced by Dicarb tend to be younger than assays produced by other laboratories on crosscheck samples, with differences ranging between 350 and 1440 yr.

Mercury interferes with endogenous antioxidant levels in Yukon River subsistence-fed sled dogs

Before adopting modern corn-and-grain-based western processed diets, circumpolar people had a high fat and protein subsistence diet and exhibited a low incidence of obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Some health benefits are attributable to a subsistence diet that is rich in omega-3 fatty acids and antioxidants. Pollution, both global and local, is a threat to wild foods, as it introduces contaminants into the food system. Northern indigenous people and their sled dogs are exposed to a variety of contaminants, including mercury, that accumulate in the fish and game that they consume. The sled dogs in Alaskan villages are maintained on the same subsistence foods as their human counterparts, primarily salmon, and therefore they can be used as a food systems model for researching the impact of changes in dietary components. In this study, the antioxidant status and mercury levels were measured for village sled dogs along the Yukon River. A reference kennel, maintained on a nutritionally balanced commercial diet, was also measured for comparison. Total antioxidant status was inversely correlated with the external stressor mercury.