Terry Halifax
Northern News Services

Inuvik (May 10/02) - Throughout the Beaufort Delta people are noticing changes in weather patterns, plants and animals.

At a meeting on climate change held recently at Ingamo Hall, a group of researchers discussed their findings from interviews with people throughout the Beaufort Delta and the world.

Mark Buell, Health Liason with the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation is working on Inuit-specific health indicators and the way that climate change affects people's health.

He said what they are discovering here are much the same as what other researchers are discovering on both poles.

"There are observations that are consistent across the circumpolar world," Buell said. "Climate change is happening and where it's felt the most are in the polar regions."

Since the poles operate as a sink to most greenhouse gasses and other pollutants the effects of climate change are happening more severely in polar regions.

"Everybody's noticing changes in the seasons," Buell said. "Warmer winters and hotter summers and the shoulder seasons are shorter than they used to be."

In a timeline, the group has established that since the 1950s there have been changes in migration patterns in birds.

"Each of the communities has noticed a change in the migration patterns of geese," he said. "They don't know when they are going to show up and they don't know where they will be."

As well people have been spending more money on boat gas because they have had to find new routes to their camps and fish nets because of low water.

"They can't navigate some rivers anymore, because the water levels have dropped so much," he said.

They also noted that willows have grown larger and they've also noticed more and different species of bugs and songbirds.

"People don't know if they should be scared of some of these bugs or if they sting," he said.

Kaisu Pulli is a student at Tampere Polytecnic in Finland is here studying on a practicum for her degree in environmental engineering.

She has interviewed people from around the circumpolar region from Inuvik to Mirmansk, Russia and says there are quite a number of common observations made by arctic people.

"They are all noticing sudden changes in the weather," she said. "One big thing is that they cannot predict the weather."

In the fall of 2001, Pulli went to northern Finland to interview the Sami people in and the Kola Sami in Russia. She says the weather is the common thread in all observation.

"The way they used to know the land and used to know the weather, now they can't tell what's going to happen."

They also noticed changes in the patterns of migratory birds and more insects.

"There are different bugs and more of them, birds that are often found only in the south are coming into the arctic," she said.

Pulli arrived in Inuvik in Feb. and will stay until July gathering information with the Aurora Research Institute and the climate change project.