Ocean at their doorstep
Climate change blamed for erosion in Tuk that threatens homes
Kassina Ryder
Northern News Services
Monday, January 16, 2017
TUKTOYAKTUK
Evidence of the Arctic's changing climate is literally on Sarah Adam's doorstep in Tuktoyaktuk. Over the past 20 years, erosion has drastically reduced Tuktoyaktuk's shoreline and the Arctic Ocean now reaches the back door of her house.
Every year, the Arctic Ocean gets a little bit closer to the homes and buildings on Tuktoyaktuk's shoreline. Warmer air and ocean temperatures are contributing to erosion. - photo courtesy of Dustin Whalen |
"I look out my big living room window and it's right below my place, it's all eaten away, the land," she said. "Right below the doorstep, I just walk out and you can see the ocean is right there."
When Adam moved into her home in 1994, she said the shoreline was about 100 feet away. Now, she worries every day that the house where she and 10 relatives live is going to fall into the sea.
"I've been having crazy dreams we're getting flooded over," she said. "It's a scary feeling."
Adam's home is on the western side of the community, where scientist Dustin Whalen said the greatest erosion damage is taking place.
Whalen, a physical scientist with Natural Resources Canada, is studying erosion in Tuktoyaktuk. He said a lack of sea ice is a major contributor. Less sea ice means higher waves and a larger number of storms.
"What we're seeing is there is actually an increase in the amount of storms, so if you have more storms, you have more waves, you have more impacts on the coast," he said. "So that's one major thing that we're seeing."
The other culprit is warmer air temperatures.
"Because we're dealing with permafrost, we see consistent melting and slumping of material. So not only are you having more storms, the summers are much hotter," he said. "Now, we have warmer air and warm water interacting with frozen coasts."
Tuktoyaktuk harbour is protected by Tuktoyaktuk Island, which sits about 500 metres offshore from the community. Between 1947 and the late 1990s, the island's rate of erosion remained steady at about 1.7 metres a year, Whalen said. That number has since jumped to 2.1 metres a year.
The rate of erosion in the community isn't currently known, but Whalen said it is lower than the island's rate.
But the island acts as a buffer protecting the harbour, and that buffer could be underwater within the next three decades.
"It has huge implications for the harbour, so right now the island is a natural barrier," he said.
"The erosion inside the harbour, all around the harbour's edge is very little because the island is protecting against it. Right now, the island will be gone in the next 25 to 35 years at this current rate."
The danger on land is also found at sea, Whalen added. Erosion is pulling thousands of cubic metres of sediment into the ocean every year, creating new hazards for ships and barges.
In September, 2016, a fuel barge hit a sandbar outside of Tuktoyaktuk before drifting to Toker Point about 25 km north of the community. Recovery efforts failed and the barge had to be left to overwinter where it landed.
Toker Point has a high rate of erosion and Whalen said it's likely sediment contributed to the barge running aground.
"It's eroding at I would say two or three metres a year, so that's two or three metres a year of material that's being deposited in front of Toker Point," he said.
"Obviously it is now shallower there than it would have been 50 years ago, so the barge may or may not have run aground 50 years ago. I would say it definitely is a contributing factor."
German scientist Michael Fritz is part of a team studying the impact of coastal erosion on the Arctic's aquatic ecosystems.
"We have very little knowledge of what's happening under water," he said. "Virtually nobody is looking at that."
The team is studying Herschel Island in the Yukon and Fritz said satellite imagery shows a drastic jump in the erosion rate after the late 1990s. Research has also demonstrated a clear link between sea ice and erosion rates.
Herschel Island now loses about 2.2 metres of coastline a year.
"We see that this erosion was rather stable until the 1990s, it was relatively stable in the Herschel Island area," he said.
"Then we had a new study from one of our PHD students that just came out last year, who shows coastal erosion really accelerated since the last years when we saw these sea ice minima.
"So that gives us one indication that accelerating coastal erosion has something to do with reducing sea ice on the Arctic ocean. That's a very serious problem."
Another contributor to permafrost thaw is new plant species taking root in the North, Fritz said.
His colleagues have also found that warmer temperatures means plant species such as shrubs are moving north. Shrubbery collects snow throughout the winter, which insulates the ground.
"Shrubs, compared to grasses for example, they gather or capture more snow, so they insulate the ground so the permafrost is warming with that change of vegetation," Fritz said.
Fritz and his colleagues are trying to develop a circumpolar team of natural scientists, social scientists, local
residents and community governments to develop a program to study coastal erosion.
The National Disaster Mitigation Program through Public Safety Canada is putting $255,000 toward the Tuktoyaktuk Flood and Shoreline Erosion Mitigation Project, said Kevin Brezinski, director of public safety with the territorial Department of Municipal and Community Affairs.
An additional $72,250 is being provided through the Hamlet of Tuktoyaktuk and the GNWT is providing in-kind project management support.
Technical work with begin this summer, Brezinski said.
When asked whether any future plans could include relocating Tuktoyaktuk, Brezinski said it's too early to consider.
"It is too early to contemplate that question, let alone speculate," he said.
Adam said she hopes a plan will be finished in time to save her home.
