Slowly but surely the scourge of global warming is turning more severe and the latest in the series to bear its brunt is a small Alaskan village, Shishmaref. The village coastline has been sinking into the Chukchi Sea with a rapid pace. Located just 20 miles south of the Arctic Circle the village have been the home for its natives, who are know as Inupiaq Eskimos, for more than 4,000 thousand years.
John Sinnock, a teacher of carving and traditional crafts at the Shishmaref School said:
The ocean ice has been getting a lot thinner. It isn’t as thick as it used to be. And it goes away much faster now than it did in the past when we were kids.
Scientists have noticed that temperatures in this part of Alaska in the last 50 years have risen four times faster than the average global temperature and as a consequence its ice is melting very fast and has started to swallow the lands. This change in the ice has also effected the migration patterns of the animals and fish on which the people of Shishmaref have relied for food for ages.
A local, Tony Weyiouanna said:
It makes harder for us to go out and hunt and we’ve had to make adjustments to our spring and fall hunt, especially the spring when we do most of our seal hunting.
In 2002 with no other option in sight the about 600 residents of the village voted in favour of relocation to some other place that would be little inland and where they would be safe. At least for now!
Source: ABC News