Forty Years of Cultural Change among the Inuit in Alaska, Canada and Greenland: Some Reflections

The peoples in the arctic regions have experienced unprecedented cultural change in the last 40 years. The Dene, Metis, Samis, Athapaskans, Inuit and other aboriginal people in these regions have all seen their traditional lifestyles altered dramatically with the increased influx of southern peoples, with their baggage of modern technology, bureaucracy and assorted economic/political social cultural systems. This paper focuses on the Inuit regions of Alaska, northern Canada and Greenland, for the Inuit have experienced more cultural changes since 1945 than in any other concentrated time span before. Although the changes have often resulted in great human tragedies, such as suicide epidemics and alcoholism, many positive changes have also occurred, as shown by major events in the three Inuit regions examined, as well as the establishment of some cultural and educational institutions. The paper draws on interviews with contemporary Inuit leaders. It concludes that the Inuit culture is now in the process of being re-affirmed and will indeed be of increasing worldwide importance as the Arctic emerges as a new international and transnational region.Key words: Alaska, northern Canada, Greenland, Inuit, cultural change Les peuples des régions arctiques ont subi des mutations culturelles sans précédent depuis quarante ans. Les Dene, les Métis, les Samis, les Athpaskans, les Inuit et d'autres peuples aborigènes de ces régions ont tous subi une modification spectaculaire de leurs modes de vie traditionnels devant l'afflux de gens de Sud débarqués avec leur bagage de techniques modernes, de bureaucratie et de systèmes économiques/politiques/sociaux/culturels assortis. Le présent article se concentre sur les régions de l'Alaska, du Nord du Canada et du Groënland peuplées par les Inuit, car ces derniers ont subi plus de changements culturels depuis 1945 que jamais auparavant.Même si ces changements se sont souvent traduits par de grandes tragédies humaines, comme des épidémies de suicide et un taux d'alcoolisme élevé, il en est également résulté quantité de changements positifs. L'auteur analyse certains des événements majeurs qui se sont produits dans ces trois régions peuplées par les Inuit ainsi que l'implantation de certains établissements culturels et éducatifs. L'article s'inspire d'entrevues menées auprès de dirigeants inuit contemporains. Sa conclusion est que la culture inuit est en passe de se réaffirmer et revêtira de plus en plus d'importance à l'échelon mondial tandis que l'Arctique émerge comme nouvelle région internationale et trans-nationale. Mots clés : Alaska, Nord du Canada, Groënland, Inuit, mutations culturelle

High-speed observation of sprite streamers

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits any use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and the source are credited.Sprites are optical emissions in the mesosphere mainly at altitudes 50–90 km. They are caused by the sudden re-distribution of charge due to lightning in the troposphere which can produce electric fields in the mesosphere in excess of the local breakdown field. The resulting optical displays can be spectacular and this has led to research into the physics and chemistry involved. Imaging at faster than 5,000 frames per second has revealed streamer discharges to be an important and very dynamic part of sprites, and this paper will review high-speed observations of sprite streamers. Streamers are initiated in the 65–85 km altitude range and observed to propagate both down and up at velocities normally in the 106–5 9 107 m/s range. Sprite streamer heads are small, typically less than a few hundreds of meters, but very bright and appear in images much like stars with signals up to that expected of a magnitude -6 star. Many details of streamer formation have been modeled and successfully compared with observations. Streamers frequently split into multiple sub-streamers. The splitting is very fast. To resolve details will require framing rates higher than the maximum 32,000 fps used so far. Sprite streamers are similar to streamers observed in the laboratory and, although many features appear to obey simple scaling laws, recent work indicates that there are limits to the scaling.Research funding has been provided by the US National Science Foundation grants to the University of Alaska Fairbanks, and the US Air Force Academy, and by DARPA through a grant to the University of Florida

Optical observations of the AMPTE artificial comet and magnetotail barium releases

The first AMPTE artificial comet was observed with a low light level television camera operated aboard the NASA CV990 flying out of Moffett Field, California. The comet head, neutral cloud, and comet tail were all observed for four minutes with an unifiltered camera. Brief observations at T + 4 minutes through a 4554A Ba(+) filter confirmed the identification of the structures. The ion cloud expanded along with the neutral cloud at a rate of 2.3 km/sec (diameter) until it reached a final diameter of approx. 170 km at approx. T + 90 s. It also drifted with the neutral cloud until approx. 165 s. By T + 190 s it had reached a steady state velocity of 5.4 km/sec southward. A barium release in the magnetotail was observed from the CV990 in California, Eagle, Alaska, and Fairbanks, Alaska. Over a twenty-five minute period, the center of the barium streak drifted southward (approx. 500 m/sec), upward (24 km/sec) and eastward (approx 1 km/sec) in a nonrotating reference frame. An all-sky TV at Eagle showed a single auroral arc in the far North during this period

Alaskan Auroral All-Sky Images on the World Wide Web

In response to a 1995 NASA SPDS announcement of support for preservation and distribution of important data sets online, the Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Alaska, proposed to provide World Wide Web access to the Poker Flat Auroral All-sky Camera images in real time. The Poker auroral all-sky camera is located in the Davis Science Operation Center at Poker Flat Rocket Range about 30 miles north-east of Fairbanks, Alaska, and is connected, through a microwave link, with the Geophysical Institute where we maintain the data base linked to the Web. To protect the low light-level all-sky TV camera from damage due to excessive light, we only operate during the winter season when the moon is down. The camera and data acquisition is now fully computer controlled. Digital images are transmitted each minute to the Web linked data base where the data are available in a number of different presentations: (1) Individual JPEG compressed images (1 minute resolution); (2) Time lapse MPEG movie of the stored images; and (3) A meridional plot of the entire night activity

SR90, strontium shaped-charge critical ionization velocity experiment

In May 1986 an experiment was performed to test Alfven's critical ionization velocity (CIV) effect in free space, using the first high explosive shaped charge with a conical liner of strontium metal. The release, made at 540 km altitude at dawn twilight, was aimed at 48 deg to B. The background electron density was 1.5 x 10(exp 4) cu cm. A faint field-aligned Sr(+) ion streak with tip velocity of 2.6 km/s was observed from two optical sites. Using two calibration methods, it was calculated that between 4.5 x 10(exp 20) and 2 x 10(exp 21) ions were visible. An ionization time constant of 1920 s was calculated for Sr from the solar UV spectrum and ionization cross section which combined with a computer simulation of the injection predicts 1.7 x 10(exp 21) solar UV ions in the low-velocity part of the ion streak. Thus all the observed ions are from solar UV ionization of the slow (less than critical) velocity portion of the neutral jet. The observed neutral Sr velocity distribution and computer simulations indicate that 2 x 10(exp 21) solar UV ions would have been created from the fast (greater than critical) part of the jet. They would have been more diffuse, and were not observed. Using this fact it was estimated that any CIV ions created were less than 10(exp 21). It was concluded that future Sr CIV free space experiments should be conducted below the UV shadow height and in much larger background plasma density

Sprite beads and glows arising from the attachment instability in streamer channels

The complex dynamics of a sprite discharge are not limited to the propagation of streamers. After the passage of a streamer head, the ionized channel established in its wake develops intricate luminous patterns that evolve on timescales from 1 up to 100 ms. To investigate these patterns, conventionally called beads and glows, we present high-speed recordings of their onset and decay; our main observation here is that in many cases distant points within a channel decay at the same rate despite considerable differences in the underlying air density. We then show that the properties of beads and glows, including this synchronized decay, are explained by the tendency of electric current within a streamer channel to converge to an uniform value and by an attachment instability of electric discharges in air. However, we also discuss the uncertainty about the chemical reactions that affect the electron density during the sprite decay.©2016. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved.A.L. was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) under projects ESP2013-48032-C5-5-R and FIS2014-61774-EXP and by the Junta de Andalucia, Proyecto de ExcelenciaFQM-5965. H.C.S.-N, M.G.M., and R.H. have been supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation grants 1104441 and 1201683 to the University of Alaska Fairbanks and to the U.S. Air Force Academy respectivelyPeer Reviewe

High time resolution PFISR and optical observations of naturally enhanced ion acoustic lines

Observations of naturally enhanced ion acoustic lines (NEIALs) taken with the Poker Flat Incoherent Scatter Radar (PFISR) using a mode with very high time resolution are presented. The auroral event took place over Poker Flat, Alaska on 8 February 2007 at 09:35 UT (~22:00 MLT), and the radar data are complemented by common-volume high-resolution auroral imaging. The NEIALs occurred during only one of the standard 15-s integration periods. The raw data of this time show very intermittent NEIALs which occur only during a few very short time intervals (≤1 s) within the 15-s period. The time sampling of the raw data, ~19 ms on average, allows study of the time development of the NEIALs, though there are indications that even finer time resolution would be of interest. The analysis is based on the assumption that the NEIAL returns are the result of Bragg scattering from ion-acoustic waves that have been enhanced significantly above thermal levels. The spectra of the raw data indicate that although the up- and down-shifted shoulders can both become enhanced at the same time, (within 19 ms), they are most often enhanced individually. The overall power in the up-and down-shifted shoulders is approximately equal throughout the event, with the exception of one time, when very large up-shifted power was observed with no corresponding down-shifted power. This indicates that during the 480 μs pulse, the strongly enhanced ion-acoustic waves were only traveling downward and not upward. The exact time that the NEIALs occurred was when the radar beam was on the boundary of a fast-moving (~10 km/s), bright auroral structure, as seen in the high resolution auroral imaging of the magnetic zenith. When viewed with high time resolution, the occurrence of NEIALs is associated with rapid changes in auroral luminosity within the radar field of view due to fast-moving auroral fine structures

PFISR Nightside Observations of Naturally Enhanced Ion Acoustic Lines, and Their Relation to Boundary Auroral Features

We present results from a coordinated camera and radar study of the auroral ionosphere conducted during March of 2006 from Poker Flat, Alaska. The campaign was conducted to coincide with engineering tests of the first quarter installation of the Poker Flat Incoherent Scatter Radar (PFISR). On 31 March 2006, a moderately intense auroral arc, (~10 kR at 557.7 nm), was located in the local magnetic zenith at Poker Flat. During this event the radar observed 7 distinct periods of abnormally large backscattered power from the F-region. These were only observed in the field-aligned radar beam, and radar spectra from these seven times show naturally enhanced ion-acoustic lines (NEIALs), the first observed with PFISR. These times corresponded to (a) when the polar cap boundary of the auroral oval passed through the magnetic zenith, and (b) when small-scale filamentary dark structures were visible in the magnetic zenith. The presence of both (a) and (b) was necessary for their occurrence. Soft electron precipitation occurs near the magnetic zenith during these same times. The electron density in the vicinity where NEIALs have been observed by previous studies is roughly between 5 and 30×1010 m−3. Broad-band extremely low frequency (BBELF) wave activity is observed in situ by satellites and sounding rockets to occur with similar morphology, during active auroral conditions, associated with the poleward edge of the aurora and soft electron precipitation. The observations presented here suggest further investigation of the idea that NEIALs and BBELF wave activity are differently-observed aspects of the same wave phenomenon. If a connection between NEIALs and BBELF can be established with more data, this could provide a link between in situ measurements of downward current regions (DCRs) and dynamic aurora, and ground-based observations of dark auroral structures and NEIALs. Identification of in situ processes, namely wave activity, in ground-based signatures could have many implications. One specific example of interest is identifying and following the temporal and spatial evolution of regions of potential ion outflow over large spatial and temporal scales using ground-based optical observations

On the emergence mechanism of carrot sprites

We investigate the launch of negative upward streamers from sprite glows. This phenomenon is readily observed in high‐speed observations of sprites and underlies the classification of sprites into carrot or column types. First, we describe how an attachment instability leads to a sharply defined region in the upper part of the streamer channel. This region has an enhanced electric field, low conductivity and strongly emits in the first positive system of molecular nitrogen. We identify it as the sprite glow. We then show how, in the most common configuration of a carrot sprite, several upward streamers emerge close to the lower boundary of the glow, where negative charge gets trapped and the lateral electric field is high enough. These streamers cut off the current flowing toward the glow and lead to the optical deactivation of the glow above. Finally, we discuss how our results naturally explain angel sprites