Community Ice Cellars In Eastern Chukotka: Climatic And Anthropogenic Influences On Structural Stability
Abstract
The large community ice cellar designs in eastern Chukotka are unique within the Arctic due to the mixed influences from the indigenous Chukchi people and western industry. Community ice cellars here were designed and constructed in the 1950s-60s to accommodate both food stores for local indigenous residents and feed stores for Arctic fox fur farms. Like much of the Arctic, this region is undergoing unprecedented climate change. Air temperatures within the study area have been increasing at an average rate of 0.7°C per decade since the 1950s. Exacerbating the adverse effects of the warming climate is the lack of ice cellar maintenance in communities where the fur industry did not survive the transition to a market economy. Today, all but two community ice cellars in eastern Chukotka have flooded or collapsed. Presented in this work are thermal records from two cellars in the region that allow for both climatic and anthropogenic influences on the cellars’ structural integrity to be evaluated. Particularly effective ice cellar maintenance practices utilized in the community of Lorino were 1) wintertime ventilation, and 2) placing large blocks of river ice in the cellar in spring to mitigate spring and summer warming.
Keywords
About the Authors
Alexey A. Maslakov
Lomonosov Moscow State University
Russian Federation
Russian Federation
Faculty of Geography
Leninskie Gory 1, 119991 Moscow.
Kelsey E. Nyland
The George Washington University
United States
United States
Department of Geography
2036 H St. NW, 20052 Washington, DC
Nina N. Komova
Lomonosov Moscow State University
Russian Federation
Russian Federation
Faculty of Geography
Leninskie Gory 1, 119991 Moscow.
Fedor D. Yurov
Lomonosov Moscow State University
Russian Federation
Russian Federation
Faculty of Geography
Leninskie Gory 1, 119991 Moscow.
Kenji Yoshikawa
International Arctic Research Center, University of Alaska Fairbanks
United States
2160 Koyukuk Dr. 99775 Fairbanks, Alaska
United States
2160 Koyukuk Dr. 99775 Fairbanks, Alaska
Gleb N. Kraev
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam;
Institute of Physicochemical and Biological Problems in Soil Science of the Russian Academy
Netherlands
Amsterdam 1081
Netherlands
Amsterdam 1081
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Supporting agencies: This study was supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, award 18-05-60080 (data analysis), Russian Science Foundation award 19-77-00045 (field work in 2019 and weather data retrieval), US National Science Foundation awards OPP-130455 and OPP-1836377/1836381, Russian Academy of Sciences state assignment 0191-2019- 0044, and the U.S. Department of State Fulbright Scholar Program. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this study are those of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the views of any of the funding agencies. Mention of specific product names does not constitute endorsement by any of the funding agencies. The authors thank Mikhael Zelensky and Evgenii Sivsiv for their participation in interviews. We also thank Gennady Zelensky, Igor Khuramshin, and Alexey Ottoy for organizing logistics, performing maintenance on data loggers, and for providing access to the ice cellars in Lorino and Inchoun. Lastly, we thank anonymous reviewers whose comments improved this paper
For citation:
Maslakov A.A., Nyland K.E., Komova N.N., Yurov F.D., Yoshikawa K., Kraev G.N. Community Ice Cellars In Eastern Chukotka: Climatic And Anthropogenic Influences On Structural Stability. GEOGRAPHY, ENVIRONMENT, SUSTAINABILITY. 2020;13(3):49-56. https://doi.org/10.24057/2071-9388-2020-71
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