View Related
Strangeness. The Sun rises two days early in the Arctic for the first time in history, ending a month-and-a-half of winter darkness...
The sun rises two days early in Greenland, sparking fears that climate change is accelerating.
Article taken from the DailyMail website:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech...
The sun over Greenland has risen two days early, baffling scientists and sparking fears that Arctic icecaps are melting faster than previously thought.
Experts say the sun should have risen over the Arctic nation's most westerly town, Ilulissat, yesterday, ending a month-and-a-half of winter darkness.
But for the first time in history light began creeping over the horizon at around 1pm on Tuesday - 48 hours ahead of the usual date of 13 January.
The mysterious sunrise has confused scientists, although it is believed the most likely explanation is that it is down to the lower height of melting icecaps allowing the sun's light to penetrate through earlier.
Thomas Posch, of the Institute for Astronomy of the University of Vienna, said that a local change of the horizon was 'by far the most obvious explanation'.
He said as the ice sinks, so to does the horizon, creating the illusion that the sun has risen early.
This theory, based on the gradual decline of Greenland's ice sheet, is backed by recent climate studies.
A report by the World Meteorology Organisation shows that temperatures in Greenland have risen around 3C above average over the last year.
It also reported that December was much warmer than usual with rainfall instead of snow recorded for the first time in Kuujjuaq since records began.
It has even been suggested that the sun's early appearance could have an astronomical explanation.
But Wolfgang Lenhardt, director of the department of geophysics at the Central Institute for Meteorology in Vienna, scotched this theory.
He said: 'The constellation of the stars has not changed. If that had happened, there would have been an outcry around the world.
'The data of the Earth's axis and Earth's rotation are monitored continuously and meticulously and we would know if that had happened.'
Has the Earth changed its tilt
A new documentary recounts bizarre climate changes seen by inuit elders. The elders discuss how the Sun is no longer setting in the same part of the sky. Perplexed, they contacted the U.S. National Aeronautics ...and Space Administration for answers, but experts said this was impossible.
Info:
Most startling for the filmmakers, though, was the Inuits' belief that along with pollution and environmental changes, caused mainly by Southerners, the Earth has actually changed its tilt. The filmmakers kept hearing this theory in different communities. Perplexed, they contacted the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration for answers, but experts said this was impossible.
When the filmmakers presented some of their findings at the Copenhagen conference on climate change last year, the media picked up on these views of the Inuit subjects, film co-director Ian Mauro says, and alarm bells started to ring in the scientific community. We had a litany of scientists come back to us, responding after seeing this news, saying, ‘This was great to be speaking to indigenous people about their views, but if you continue to perpetuate this fallacy that the Earth had tilted on its axis, [the Inuit] .... would lose all credibility.' And so there was really this backlash by the scientific community.
Still, the Inuit insist they see changes in the sun's course and the position of the stars in the night sky. These elders, when they were growing up, they were told to go out every morning, before having anything to eat. They were told to go out at the age of 5 every morning to observe the weather, Kunuk says. So when they started talking about the sun and the sunset, I was puzzled too. Everywhere I went, each community, I was getting the same answer: The sun does not settle where it used to. I mean, it [causes] alarm.
About the film Above:
Inuit Knowledge and Climate Change had its world premiere October 23, 2010, at the imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival in Toronto. The complete film also streamed online simultaneously watched by more than 1500 viewers around the world. Following the film, a Q&A with filmmakers Zacharias Kunuk and Dr. Ian Mauro included live call-in by Skype from viewers from Pond Inlet, New York, Sydney, Australia and other locations.
Nunavut-based director Zacharias Kunuk (Atanarjuat The Fast Runner) and researcher and filmmaker Dr. Ian Mauro (Seeds of Change) have teamed up with Inuit communities to document their knowledge and experience regarding climate change. This new documentary, the world’s first Inuktitut language film on the topic, takes the viewer “on the land” with elders and hunters to explore the social and ecological impacts of a warming Arctic. This unforgettable film helps us to appreciate Inuit culture and expertise regarding environmental change and indigenous ways of adapting to it.
READ MORE
Inuit Knowledge and Climate Change had its world premiere October 23, 2010, at the imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival in Toronto. The complete film also streamed online simultaneously watched by more than 1500 viewers around the world. Following the film, a Q&A with filmmakers Zacharias Kunuk and Dr. Ian Mauro included live call-in by Skype from viewers from Pond Inlet, New York, Sydney, Australia and other locations.
Nunavut-based director Zacharias Kunuk (Atanarjuat The Fast Runner) and researcher and filmmaker Dr. Ian Mauro (Seeds of Change) have teamed up with Inuit communities to document their knowledge and experience regarding climate change. This new documentary, the world’s first Inuktitut language film on the topic, takes the viewer “on the land” with elders and hunters to explore the social and ecological impacts of a warming Arctic. This unforgettable film helps us to appreciate Inuit culture and expertise regarding environmental change and indigenous ways of adapting to it.
Exploring centuries of Inuit knowledge, allowing the viewer to learn about climate change first-hand from Arctic residents themselves, the film portrays Inuit as experts regarding their land and wildlife and makes it clear that climate change is a human rights issue affecting this ingenious Indigenous culture. Hear stories about Arctic melting and how Inuit believe that human and animal intelligence are key to adaptability and survival in a warming world.
Community-based screenings of the film are now being organized across Canada. Stay tuned for more information, new blog posts and videos added to this channel regularly.
Please feel free to contact us should you like to organize a screening in your area. Email us:
[email protected].
Post Article:
Submit Your Own Article