Module V: The Oceans, Climate and Culture

Module V: The Oceans, Climate and Culture

Explain:

I believe growing up in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan near the Great Lakes gave me a warped perspective on how enormous the oceans are. While walking the beach of Lake Michigan or Lake Superior all a person can see is water – much like the ocean. However, the oceans absolutely dwarf these fresh water lakes! Eric Ellefson does a great job of explaining just how much bigger the oceans are than the lakes we grew up around in the mid-west.

The part of this module that seemed simply amazing to me was learning about the ocean currents, the Gulf Stream and thermohaline circulation. This process is simply phenomenal! The warm ocean currents warm the land that they pass by and cool others. They create climate! It’s no small potatoes that that a change in these currents would cause dramatic changes to the climates that they drive.

Whether talking about the Holocene climatic optimum driven by a change in current or the subsequent “little ice age” following that in the Northern Atlantic, ocean currents are definitely a big player on the global climate stage. While looking for more information about currents driving climate I found the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.  Reading a few articles here has helped me understand a few things about the Great Ocean Conveyor. I found an article entitled “Ocean Conveyor's 'Pump' Switches Back On” on the WHO site that was very interesting. It talks about thermohaline circulation being interrupted and then starting again. It’s short and really informative! 

Check out this phenomenon:  “The Greenland Tip Jet” that drives the “Pump”!

The Greenland tip jet is a sporadic, low-level atmospheric jet stream characterized by fierce winds on the lee side of Cape Farewell on the southern tip of Greenland. As storms pass through from the southwest, high-level winds descend the glacial slopes on the eastern side of Greenland, accelerating as they drop down over the ocean. In the process, they draw cold air into a relatively small area over the southern Irminger Sea. This phenomenon appears to play a critical role in chilling North Atlantic waters so that they sink to great depths and drive part of the global ocean circulation and climate system. Using NOAA's QuikSCAT satellite, MIT/WHOI Joint Program graduate student Kjetil Våge compiled this image of a tip jet on Dec. 5, 2002. Color indicates wind speeds in meters per second; arrows indicate wind direction. (Courtesy of Kjetil Våge, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) 

Extend:

Going through this course I didn’t think that I was going to be able to use much of it in my US History class…and then ... bam! It doesn’t get any more American History then Benjamin Franklin folks!! This guy was a celebrity throughout Europe during the Revolution and now I learn that he also discovered and named the Gulf Stream!! SWEET!!! What an important piece of the natural world to take advantage of while sailing across the Atlantic. To be able to guarantee a much shorter trip across due to knowledge of this current would have been an extreme advantage. 

A great way to illustrate this is to show a simple representation of what an ocean current is and does with  a small clip from the Disney and Pixar film “Finding Nemo”.  In the movie Marlin and Dory have to ride the East Australia Current (EAC) to Sydney to find Nemo. The turtles swimming in the EAC do a good job of explaining what ocean currents are and how they work! Check it out here!

More on the EAC.

Evaluate:

There are a lot of useful resources in this mod! Specific heat and albedo are perfect things to discuss when talking about how extreme high temperature affected troops in the Revolutionary War.  (Battle of Monmouth) Along with these things, I will definitely be including Franklin’s discovery of the Gulf Stream into my biographical lesson about him!

This module as also informed how I view the world around me here on the Kenai Peninsula. I have seen sand lances while digging clams ad always wondered what they were! They are an important part of the food web! It’s amazing that the AK Natives can use the lunar calendar so well to predict berry and mushroom harvests as well as fish runs. I would like to learn these skills! 

Collegial Comments:

I commented on Lila’s blog and thanked her for informing me about the Exxon spill still had a felt impact on salmon runs here on the Kenai.

Next, I commented on Eric’s blog and pointed out that it was interesting that even though one might throw something away, it still might end up in the ocean as trash.

Finally, I commented on Dan’s blog because I was amazed at the effectiveness of a simple demonstration that he uses with his students to explain what causes the changing seasons.

Module IV: Volcanoes, Earthquakes, and Tsunamis

Module IV: I Feel the the Earth Move!

Explain:

I never felt the earth move until I came to Alaska. It was a shocking and thrilling experience. The P waves and then … wait for it ……the S waves… AWESOME!

Carole King could feel the earth move.

A little bit different than the earth moving that Carole King was experiencing back in ’71, but with almost equally exhilarating emotions. I was sitting at my desk a few weeks ago and I heard the suspended ceiling above me rumble and felt a light wiggle in the room. At first I thought the math teacher above me was really getting after those math exercises after school, but what I didn’t realize was that that light shake and shimmy were the P waves moving out ahead of the S-waves which rocked me in my desk chair! It was amazing. I was very impressed that the earth had such power in a relatively small earth quake!

Learning about the All Saints Day Earthquake in 1755 when people began to take an informed look at the different types of energies expelled during an earthquake helped me to identify the movement that I felt during the small quake I had experienced. 

The chaos surrounding the 1755 All Saints Day Quake in Lisbon must have been apocalyptic.

The most interesting thing that I learned from this module was from the TD video about Tectonic Plate Movement in Alaska. Seeing the massive amounts of rock in real life and then on video is rather amazing. Maybe more impressive is that the effects of the Katmai Earthquake are still being realized and observed today. What an excellent example of the duplicity of the intricacies and enormity of the earth’s tectonics right here in Alaska!

Extend:

I will be able to use this knowledge about tectonics and subduction in the unit I teach about India. The Himalayas had a huge effect on the Harappan civilization and other cultures that developed in the Indus valley.

During my next unit I will point out that tectonic activity is wide spread in Israel and the rest of the Middle East as we take a look at the Hebrews and their history. Earth quakes have a rather colorful history in Jewish writings and have often been viewed as God’s wrath being delivered to the evildoers of the day. As well as an aid to the Israelites as the traveled to the Promise Land.

Evaluate:

I love reviewing this kind of stuff! These are the forces that shape our world and make it change. Causing civilizations to adapt and attempt to explain the world around them while they overcome present challenges only to face new ones! Its no wonder the Tlingit have a story of a great frog that lives at the head of Lituya Bay that ribbits and causes such destructive waves!

Thousands of years ago as well as today, land that moved up and down and side to side with such force and suddenness demands an explanation.  Looking at the earth moving on a smaller scale may be an easier way to understand parts of these forces. Things like slump, creep and slide, which happen as a result of gravity moving the earth, are another way to view the earth changing. Even with a different engine running the process we can see ground around us changing before our eyes- thankfully over a shorter period of time and not as violently.

Slump: Land moves down hill leaving a scarp.

Creep: Soil moves very slowly downhill.

Conchita, CA. landslide

To observe, measure and explain the changes around us is a spectacular accomplishment. Its amazing that we can incorporate native and western understandings regarding these events to better realize how they effect people in an instant and for generations to come.

Comments:

First, I commented on Eric Ellefson’s blog about his story of Napier, New Zealand and how it was quite interesting that many native traditions are quite similar.


Second, I commented on Janet Reed's blog and thanked her for sharing some awesome personal photos and a story about the native village of Chenega that was destroyed by the Katmai Quake.


Finally, I commented on Alaska Knowledge. He posted some sweet graphs that helped me understand how seismic waves move through the earth!

Module VI

Module VI: What’s in the Air up There

1. Explain:

This week’s module has been an excellent reminder that polluting the air in one area of the world pollutes the air for the entire globe. I am reminded of a saying that brings this idea down to a more comprehensible and immediately palpable scale. “Having a smoking section in a restaurant is like having a peeing section in a pool.”

Although air pollution might not make its self apparent in the short term, its effects are serious and dangerous to be sure. Sadly, this is born out in arctic populations who eat many mammals and fish that are high in mercury and other lipophilic organochlorides (pollution nasties that are stored in fat). Mothers can transfer these chemicals to their infants and these infant's developing neurological and immune systems are attacked by this pollution.

Even though the pollution in the air is having ill effects on Natives who depend on sea mammals, the air its self has been an excellent medium for flight. Providing the bush with supplies and transportation can be a matter of life and death. I found the discussion about using ancient native knowledge about the weather to predict good flying weather in the Bush – especially when “scientific” weather forecasts signal conditions that are unflyable to be very interesting. The Native understanding of the clouds, ice in the air and even the slightest nuance in the winds allow them to fly more safely and informed about the coming weather.

One idea that I would like to push back on from this week’s lesson is the premise behind why air pollution concentrates more at the poles than it does elsewhere on earth. In the videos explaining the impact of pollutants on Natives and the ARCTAS mission there seems to be a common hypothesis that pollution collects at the polls because there is a  lack of sunlight in the arctic - providing for little air circulation. 

I am not sure how this can be considering that it’s usually windy in Barrow. Also, there are many more days that see the life giving warmth of the sun than there are days of total darkness. I commented on Kevin’s blog with regards to this and would like to clarify my understanding of this hypothesis.

In this picture you can see clouds surrounding the polar jet and forming Rosby waves!

Along with forcing me to ask some questions about the material for the week, I really enjoyed reviewing about Rosby waves and the global heat budget. I did not realize that heat and moisture moving over the earth accounted for so much of this exchange of power within our atmosphere. Dan Adair’s blog really helped me understand this idea.

Lastly, while reading Alison’s blog I came across a neat historical lesson about changing phase. In her blog Alison raised a question wondering if folks flash freeze fish by changing the atmospheric pressure around the fish. I don’t believe this is a cost effective option because I only found evidence of people flash freezing food products at very cold temperatures in traditional style freezers.

While researching the history of flash freezing I came across the story of Clarence Birdseye and his observations of Arctic cultures. He found it amazing that when Eskimos prepared food that had been frozen it tasted almost exactly the same as it did when it was prepared fresh. 

Birdseye figured out that freezing foods very quickly at very low temps allowed the meat and produce to keep its cell walls intact and keep the moisture and nutrients in the food. Fast freezing means very small ice crystals which do not harm the food like large slow growing crystals do. Large knife like crystals burst cell walls and break down flavors and nutrients. Birdseye went on to make a mint in frozen foods!

2. Extend:

The TD resources about weather patterns and how the oceans and winds work together will be a big help to me in explaining weather patterns that have affected both ancient and more recent cultures. A lot of the information from this unit provides the foundation to explaining why people settled where they did based on the surrounding weather and climate.

3. Evaluate

I found these resources and the information presented to be very informative on atmospheric pollution and how it effects Native populations in Alaska. I believe that having a good understanding about weather and how it works is important to understanding very common events. Storm fronts, bodies of warm and cool air – all of these can be easily modeled and explained using the tools from TD in this unit.

3 Colleagues

1. I appreciated Alison’s concern for the environment in her recent conversion to using organic products and extended some of her ideas about flash freezing.

2. I learned a lot from Dan’s graphic and relation of the latent heat flux to a real amount of power.

3. Finally I enjoyed Kevin’s inclusion of ice core data in the deposition of heavy metals in the Arctic as well as his discussion of the amount of light in Barrow.