Lecture 1: slides - University of Washington, School of Oceanography

HA&S 222a Spr 2006
Lecture 1 slides
28 iii 2006
Labrador Sea
(see fig.19)
Faroe Islands (~Denmark)
Shetland Islands (Scotland)
Research vessel Knorr, Labrador Sea
Earth’s topography, both on land and the seafloor (red, brown=high;
light blue=shallow ocean, deep blue = deep ocean). Note Greenland
with its 3000m high ice cap denoted in orange.
winter in west Greenland (near the capital, Nuuk)
Clouds over Greenland sit above the crest of the ice cap as the wind
blows through them. It is one of the stormiest areas in the world.
The following images from Prof. Konrad Steffen, Univ. of Colorado
Let’s remove the ice (only temporarily) the Greenland ice cap
has weighted down the solid Earth, pushing it below sea level….a
veritable precipitation guage recording the past 120,000 years or
more of winter snowfall
Greenland reaches ¼ of the way between
Pole and Equator (2500 km, or about 23 degrees
of latitude).
Petermann Glacier flows out over the sea: northwest Greenland
K. Steffen photo
Glaciers are ‘grounded’ as they flow slowly toward the sea, but the float as they
encounter dense sea water. Here the smooth white is sea ice, just a meter or
two thick, whereas the glacial ice is 100s of m thick (1000s of m further inland).
Note the icebergs fracturing off the ice tongue
Ellesmere Island, Canada
Native names for Greenland villages have now replaced European names.
John Rasmussen photos of Greenland
and its transportation system
The Greenland flag resembles a setting sun. It is their symbol of home rule, or independence from centuries of Danish
rule. However it is still dominated by Denmark economically, politically and in technology. Christianity reached
Greenland when the Vikings gave up their Nordic gods, in about 1000 AD. Greenland had its own bishop, small
cathedral, and many churches.
Greenland native
Birds, fish, whales are concentrated in particular regions of the Arctic
and Arctic rim, where the plankton they depend upon is found.
Beluga (white) whale
Our field research in climate change involves launching robotic
undersea vehicles offshore of Nuuk, Greenland. This is the
Seaglider, invented and developed in UW’s School of Oceanography
Narwhal and Seagliders inhabit the same part of
the ocean (and both are now instrumented)
Seaglider
cloud
ice
Baffin Island
Narwhal
Looking down on northern Labrador Sea,, between
Greenland and Baffin Island. A dense ice-floe is
moving southward on the west side of the ocean, while
clouds cover the eastern region; the Greenland
coast is visble at upper right. See fig. 1 Both
Seagliders and narwhal are found here.
Faroe Islands (between Norway and Iceland), have about 45,000 inhabitants
descended from Viking settlers. They still speak their own distinct language,
with its roots related to the old Norse spoken by the Vikings. Much about the
Viking world was described in epic ‘sagas’ which were written, some in verse,
and somewhat in the spirit of Lord of the Rings. They were written from roughly
A.D. 1000 onward, and record much earlier events as well.
The rugged coast of the
Faroes
Kirkjabour, first settled by Celtic friars who arrived at the Faroes in skin boats, around
800 A.D. Viking exploration apparently began abruptly in A.D. 793 with an attack on
Lindesfarne, an island off the NE (northeast) coast of Scotland. Viking settlers spread
quickly westward to the Faroes, Iceland and Greenland. About A.D. 1000 it reached a
brief (maybe 10 year) colonization of Labrador, where recent archaeological digs show a
Viking settlement at L’anse aux Meadows, which you can visit today. This was long
before Christopher Columbus ‘discovered’ America.
There is an unfinished gothic cathedral here from the Middle Ages.
Whaling harpoons at Kirkjabour (Olavar Hatun, left is a musician who
founded the Faroese national choir).
Torshavn, capital of the Faroes. The kinds of villages and settlements
one finds around the Arctic rim vary greatly; here we have an idyllic
Scandavian village with a rich history.
The economies of the Arctic settlements invariably involve fish, oil or gas:
natural resources that are much sought after by their European, North
American or Asian trading partners. But also resources that depend on or affect
the environment strongly.
Svalbard 780 North was developed for its coal by a Mr.
Longyear of Boston Massachusetts at the turn of the last
century. Its capital is Longyearbyn. It is now the site of the
northernmost university (UNIS) in the world
The Norwegian research ship Hakon Mosby, which carries out
oceanographic and climate research in the region. We studied a fjord
on Svalbard and its oceanographic behavior in an August 2005
research cruise. During this period polar bears were aggressively trying
to defeat the science.
The Inuit
of northern Canada
Aboriginal land claims: the ‘final agreement’ 1993, making an autonomous native territory of Canada
(partial home rule)
INUIT CIRCUMPOLAR CONFERENCE
The Inuit Circumpolar Conference (ІСС) is the international organization
representing approximately 150.000 Inuit living
in the Arctic regions of Alaska, Canada, Greenland and Chukotka, Russia.
www.inuit.org/
This carved horse is one of the earliest works of art known to mankind, along with cave
paintings from about this period. It is from the tusk of a woolly mammoth, at the edge of
the glacial world of 31,000 years ago. Very much in the spirit of current native art of the
far north, it reminds us that people chose to live in these harshly cold places.
Possibly this was because of the food and fuel provided abundantly by the rich Arctic
ecosystem…all the way along the food chain
The native kayak of Greenland evolved over the 6000 years (or so) of native
occupation there. It is efficient, light and adaptable in comparison with modern
plastic or kevlar kayaks. Built from drift wood and seal-skin, it allows hunters to
harpoon seal and small whales. This modern replica uses canvas instead of
seal-skin, sewn and bound together with cotton thread soaked in linseed oil. It
is ecologically friendly: the Danish teacher of the boat building class said
“There’s nothing in this boat you couldn’t eat. When you
are finished with it, it will decay gracefully unlike the plastic things all round us.”
principal Canadian Inuit communities
Their homeland stretches from the northeastern tip of Russia across Alaska and northern
Canada to parts of Greenland.Inuit refers to the people formerly called Eskimos.
The term Eskimo comes from a Native American word that may have meant 'eater of raw
meat
http://collections.ic.gc.ca/arctic/inuit/people.htm
Chukchi natives
of Russia
/www.mnh.si.edu/arctic/features/croads/chukchi.html