Open AccessLong‐term bird study records Arctic climate change
Author(s) -
Zielinski Sarah
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
eos, transactions american geophysical union
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.316
H-Index - 86
eISSN - 2324-9250
pISSN - 0096-3941
DOI - 10.1029/2005eo500004
Subject(s) - arctic , subarctic climate , ornithology , climate change , geography , the arctic , oceanography , physical geography , ecology , archaeology , southern hemisphere , geology , biology
Alaska's summer of 2005 was the second warmest on record there, with a record retreat of arctic pack ice. As Alaskan temperatures gradually increase, artic birds, such as the black guillemots of Cooper Island, near Barrow, Alaska, are experiencing drastic habitat changes. Though these small black and white birds—the subjects of a long‐term study of climate change—fared better this year than they have in the recent past (due to local cool conditions), they are nonetheless struggling to adapt as their artic island summer home becomes subarctic. George Divokyan ornithologist at the Institute of Arctic Biology, University of Alaska Fairbanks, discovered the Cooper Island colony of guillemots in the early 1970s and has spent every summer since 1975 there studying these birds. He presented his latest research during a 3 November talk in Washington, D.C.