Sarah’s tale of Arctic warming

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/335480/title/Sarah%E2%80%99s_tale_of_Arctic_warming

Sarah’s tale of Arctic warming

Observations from one remote village as its climate changes

By Janet Raloff
Web edition : Thursday, October 20th, 2011

MIAMI — Sarah James remembers playing outdoors as a child even in the dead of winter. It often hit -70 degrees Fahrenheit, although not for prolonged periods. But she and the other kids, tired of being house-bound, just bundled up in snow suits and boots made from caribou skins. Even such frigid temps never put life — or play — on hold, recalls this 67-year-old resident of http://www.city-data.com/city/Arctic-Village-Alaska.html">Arctic Village, Alaska.

Today, winter cold snaps seldom dip below -40 degrees, she says. And snows, that used to begin falling in August or September, now typically arrive in late October or November.

Over a half-century or so, her town of some 150 Athabascan Indians has watched as the formerly extreme but fairly predictable climate in this amazingly remote region of inland Alaska has become warmer and more erratic. Overall, that’s definitely not been a change for the better, James says.

She ventured to South Florida this week — and the http://www.sej.org/">Society of Environmental Journalists’ annual meeting — to describe what it’s like to weather life on the frontlines of climate change.

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