But Mead Treadwell, chairman of the U.S. Arctic Research Commission, said the new work is another piece of evidence that justifies the attention to indigenous knowledge that has been overlooked and sometimes dismissed by mainstream science.
That's one reason his commission has urged measures ranging from preserving indigenous languages of the Arctic to encouraging scientists and native peoples to collaborate on scientific research.
"If you lose the language that people have been speaking for 10,000 years as it has evolved, you lose a huge amount of information that is built up in the language," he said. "If something is named 'a place where the caribou mate,' that tells you the caribou were once there if they are not there now. If you lose a particular plant that might translate as 'medicine weed,' you understand how it has been used."
Treadwell noted that, in two separate instances, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration changed its estimate of the Arctic's bowhead whale population based on native reports that showed more whales than the government initially counted.
For her part, Weatherhead said her next step will be examining how climate change affects the persistence of weather patterns around the world.
"This increase in persistence that we're seeing in very many places is just as important as the decrease in persistence that Arctic inhabitants are talking about," she said. "It has potential human health impacts, for example. People with asthma can often take one day of bad weather. Two is stressful. But at three, they might find themselves in the emergency room."
The study will be published this month in the journal Global Environmental Change.
Reprinted from Climatewire with permission from Environment & Energy Publishing, LLC. www.eenews.net, 202-628-6500
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11 Comments
Add Comment"Scientists have attempted to confirm those claims for at least 15 years without success -- until now."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this- So, some local people noticed something that could not be proven, until now. This shows how dangerous it is to dismiss observations, especially by indigenous people.
It is excellent that Ms. Weatherhead followed up and showed a scientific basis for these observations.
There used to be a commonly used colloquial saying heard throughout the continental U.S.: "If you don't like the weather here in 'Mytown', stick around - it'll change".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNow, this little jewel of universal local wisdom seems to confirm the author's otherwise unsubstantiated major assertion: "In most of the world -- including mid-latitudes, where much of the planet's population lives -- weather seems to be getting more persistent."
Of course, maybe mainstream scientists have also overlooked and unerappreciated the indigenous environmental konwledge of the rest of the world, too.
While following up on Inuit local climate expertise makes perfect sense, these assertions could have been better substantiated by statistical analyses of actual climate data. That's what distinguishes science from personal opinion and conventional wisdom.
It was my understanding that the saying you quoted above was localized around New England, where the weather varies greatly. This is in comparison to other major cities like San Diego, Seattle, Miami, Houston, which doesn't really see a lot of variation in typical weather patterns.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis isn't anything scientific, it was just my understanding of that saying.
I agree on the followup and analysis. The analysis of the Inuit observations shows a correlation (of the observed effect - the changes) but not any information on the root cause. I think that is one of the problems with climate change - we can see the changes and many correlations but root cause (or causes) are difficult or impossible to determine. At what point does a strong correlation indicate a cause effect relationship?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere are other areas where I do not think even an analysis could be performed. For example, the global boundary areas between the tropical-temperate and temperate-arctic zones seem to be less stable and defined now than they used to be. I am sure the Coriolis forces haven't changed, but wonder if any analysis could show that this is true (or not)? If it is true could that have caused some of the changes observed in the article above - independent of the analysis performed locally?
agenthucky - Yeah, that's what everyone thinks, all around the country. I've been around quite a bit - grew up in the Midwest. Everyone thinks their weather is special: it is, but not necessarily in its perceived variability. Kinda funny, isn't it?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI overlooked your good point about especially southern coastal regions, but even much of Texas and here in Memphis gets enough seasonal weather to seemingly support the perception of variability.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisProbably more to the point, any time the weather changes, especially whenever a storm blows in, everyone is convinced the local weather is highly variable. I haven't spent a lot of time in Florida, but at least during some seasons they experience regular afternoon thunderstorms, even waterspouts and small tornadoes and what may be more lightning than anywhere else in the country. San Diego might be the exception to this rule.
While the Inuit's observations may be extremely insightful, generally speaking most people today judge the local weather solely in relation to the weather they experienced yesterday Most today have little idea what the weather is really like around the world, but they think it doesn't change as much as their own weather.
candide - I'm not a statistician, but I have a lot of applied experience solving difficult problems in complex systems, so I'll share my views.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMany data elements in complex systems may strongly correlate. This can occur because many conditions may share some common causal factors.
Correlations do indicate the possibility of causation and warrant more detailed investigation. There may be some very sophisticated statistical techniques to determine causality, but I wouldn't bet on them. IMHO, statistics are most useful in determining something about which nothing is known. Once something has been learned it's best to proceed using more deterministic methods, such as interviewing Inuits, etc.
The most serious failure in this 'study' is that it portends to have discovered new information from the Inuits, then somehow extrapolates this information to determine that the climatic variability of the rest of the world in inversely related to the polar regions. Remarkable leap to an apparently completely unsubstantiated conclusion regarding undetermined climatic processes.
I'd want to see an analysis of some measure of regional variability, at least , for example the 5 day lag temperature differential, to substantiate a claim such as the "weather seems to be getting more persistent".
Keep in mind that the information from the Inuits formed the basis for the study: "What we found is that the day-to-day persistence of weather was changing in this more unpredictable manner for at least one of the two locations" "included in the study, she said, during a critical time of year -- Arctic spring, which occurs in June at the two Canadian sites."
Sorry if I've digressed - I'm beside myself!
@jtdwyer -
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"The most serious failure in this 'study' is that it portends to have discovered new information from the Inuits"
I agree, in general with what you say, but no "new" information has been discovered. What this study has done is take information that only the Inuits knew (and possibly only they understood) and quantified it so others can understand it - a translation if you will. Extrapolating this beyond very similar environments is very dangerous IMO, unless some other set or sets of information are somehow linked.
Correlation and causation are not necessarily the same. But just as correlation does not prove causation neither does it disprove it.
Every time I drop something it falls to the earth. Expanding on this every time anyone that has ever existed droped anything it fell to the earth. There is an obvious 100% correlation, yet the cause is unknown. We call it gravity and nobody knows how it works (to a detailed physical level), but there is a 100% correlation. So "gravity" (a fuzzy 'unproven' concept) is the causation of the 100% correlation with objects falling to earth. Gravity can be successfully extrapolated to other objects (so far) based on what we know about it, even without the nth degree specific knowledge of how it works.
Other correlations may not work so nicely.
candide - Sorry for exhausting my energy resources. I'll attempt a few more comments - all my own opinions.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAccording to this report, this study determined that the world's propensity for 'persistent weather' has recently changed based on an analysis of two sites in Canada, only one of which supported the conclusion. There's no statistical basis for any conclusion in that analysis, much less any global extrapolations...
No extrapolation of any curve can be determined from a single data point.
There is no correlation coefficient that either proves or disproves causality or anything else. It can be used as a screening mechanism for qualifying potential associations among variables.
I'm using the term correlation to refer to the formal mathematical assessment of covariance among data elements used in statistics. Informal observations of covariance (characteristic properties that change in the same way under varying conditions) would be better described as coincidence (coterminous incidence) - not to be in any way dismissive of their importance in indicating relationships.
Causality must be independently established based on physical processes. Once the responsible process is understood and explained, the correlation coefficient can be used as substantial evidence (not proof) supporting the assertion of causation.
Newton and Einstein, among others, might dispute your assertion that gravity is unproven. Although the complete physical process (quantum gravitation) has not been definitively determined, it has been well established that the effect of gravitation is proportionately produced by the collective presence of mass, and its effective characteristics have been well described by predictive equations.
i think its good to capture the memories of the locals as to what weather variations are occurring in their local...just wondering if there is any sat data to back it up...should be....
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishere in florida...we had one of the hottest summers last year and one of the coldest winters(that i can remember)...it looks like this summer will beat last year....already working on it;-)
just my two cents....
Wayne Williamson - Not to mention the incidence of hurricanes.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf the variability of local conditions were consistently changing, one would expect this to be reflected the the local weatherman's reports of record low and high temperatures each day.
The local record hottest spell in Memphis occurred in the early 1980s. The local record coldest spell I've experienced (in Kansas) also occurred in the 1980s. Not that these mean anything by themselves, but these weren't the only areas affected by those weather systems. I expect that much of the country had record temperature extremes in the 1980s.
I don't know if there's some online daily temperature data available in some wiki-almanac site, but statistical analysis of that type of data would be required to empirically establish whether the variability of climatic conditions was changing in some meaningful way. I'm sure the Intuits are necessarily far better observers of their local weather than you or I, but additional evidence is necessary for substantiation, especially for global extrapolation of local conclusions.