OneDegreeFactor-Group1

“Detectives usually break mysterious cases when they first see the connections among seemingly unrelated clues. Consider these: Dust clouds are building high over the Atlantic. An entire population of caribou is declining, their numbers dwindling, while in the oceans, other species are being pushed to the limits of their physical survival. A respiratory illness, once uncommon among children in Trinidad, is now widespread. Amazingly, many scientists now believe these disparate phenomena may be linked to global climate change.” __Directions:__ Each group will explain what happened in their section of the video. · What was the event that was occurring? · How did it link to global climate change? · What will be the impact of this?
 * __ ​ The One Degree Factor  __** **//Group 1: Hot Times in the Far North//**

Scientists are studying the caribou that are dying because of climate change in Northern Alaska. 10 years ago there were 180 thousand caribou now there are 120 thousand caribou. The Gwitchen tribe relies on the caribou to survive but since caribou are dying the Gwitchen tribe could die off. Since there is so much snow the caribou are slower and more vulnerable to predators like wolves. Mosquitos can drink up to one table spoon of caribou blood each day. The mosquitos can give the caribou diseases. So the caribou literally head for the hills to find a strong enough breeze to blow the mosquitos off of them. Since the caribou are avoiding mosquitos they abandon valleys full of food and resources. The hills they are up in have little resources and food. Often caribou don't get all the food they need. Also with warmer temperatures, the mosquitos have longer breeding seasons, which leads to larger swarms of mosquitos. With more mosquitos means, they need to drink more blood giving caribou more diseases. Rising temperatures bring more snow, causing the caribou to work harder to find food burried deep in the snow. Stronger snow storms make the caribou breed while migrating causing thousands to die. The impact of caribou dying is that the predators of the caribou will die since they have nothing to eat. Porcupine Caribou Picture from: []

Good job explaining the problems that caribou are facing due to climate change. You still did not give a summary of the movie. Biologist Steve Arthur has found that the Porcupine caribou herd has decreased from 187,000 to 120,000 since 1989. He took pictures of the herd from an airplane and pieced them together to count the heard. Darius Elias is a park ranger in the Yuntut National Park and is a member of the Gwich’n Nation. His people rely on caribou as it is a very important and vital part of their subsistence diet. 65/75 points