WEEK 4: IOWA
From the Polar Vortex to Polar Research: Iowa’s Growing Engagement with the Arctic
By Andrey N. Petrov, Director of the Arctic, Cold and Remote Territories Interdisciplinary Center (ARCTICenter) and Associate Professor of Geography at the University of Northern Iowa (UNI); and Emily Francis, UNI Department of Geography graduate student and ARCTICenter researcher.
Iowa is not a place where most residents feel close to the Arctic, except, of course, when cold Arctic air shows up in our state in the form of the well-publicized “polar vortex.” This frequent Midwestern ‘guest’ has in recent years been bringing chilling temperatures to the Upper Central Plains, providing Iowans with a small taste of the Arctic. In addition to sometimes feeling like we’re breathing the same air as our Arctic friends, as we like to joke, there are a number of substantial Iowa-Arctic connections that we’re happy to have the chance to share.
With Iowa being located almost directly at the center of the North American continent, our state might not seem to be the most natural location for Arctic-based research. However, Iowans have actually made some significant contributions to Arctic studies in recent centuries. Iowa native Dorothy Jean Ray (1919–2007), a graduate of the University of Northern Iowa, became a leading Alaska anthropologist focusing on Inuit art and culture. Vilhjalmur Steffanson (1879–1962), although not an Iowan by birth, studied at the University of Iowa (BA, 1903), before embarking on a remarkable career of Arctic exploration. Another adventurous University of Iowa student, Frank Russell (1868–1903), made a 3,000 miles solo journey across the Canadian North in 1892–1894. Just to name a few….
The legacy and research of these Arctic-oriented Iowans continues today. Iowa’s Arctic-related research is concentrated in our public universities, with the University of Northern Iowa (UNI) perhaps having the strongest tie to the Arctic as the home of the state’s new primary Arctic research facility, the Arctic, Remote and Cold Territories Interdisciplinary Center (ARCTICenter), which started as a lab in 2011 and was formally approved by the Board of Regents in 2015.
It is true that Arctic researchers in Iowa are often faced with the question: how does studying the Arctic benefit Iowans and serve our state? The answer is too lengthy to recite here, but a few basic points can be revealed. First of all, climate change, and Arctic amplification in particular, are always an easy-to-make connection: for Iowa, an important (and vital) question is the impact of Arctic warming on mid-latitude weather patterns, natural hazards (such as tornado activity, ice storms, deep “polar vortex” freeze), droughts and overall weather volatility. Farming is for many in this state more than a method of economic survival, but a deeply ingrained cultural necessity. Iowa recently experienced its share of droughts and floods, causing residents to pay close attention to climatic variability.
Many Iowa rural communities share surprisingly similar characteristics to the Arctic and Sub-Arctic ones: shrinking and ageing population, small labor force, over-reliance on one or two industries or employers, limited access to financial capital, small local market, etc. Understanding how Arctic communities are coping with these factors is instrumental in designing regional and local development strategies in the Midwest (and other peripheries). And, conversely, rural development experiences in Iowa may be useful in the Arctic. (Although not all: Soviet leader Khrushchev after his famous visit to Iowa in 1959 ordered to plant corn in the Russian Arctic only to face a bitter failure).
Iowa is a significant player in the energy market, as it is a major renewable fuel (ethanol) producer and a wind energy powerhouse. As such, our state has a major stake in the energy sector, and oil prices and dynamics of fossil fuels production impact the state economy. To a certain extent, Iowa, a new development frontier of renewable energy, indirectly competes with the Arctic, the last frontier of traditional fuels. On the other hand, Midwest may become a new crossroads of North America when resources from the Arctic and Sub-Arctic may flow through the region, while grain exports could be transported to overseas markets through increasingly ice free Arctic ports (e.g., Churchill, Canada).
In the last few years, Iowa researchers became more engaged in studies of various social, cultural and economic processes in the Arctic. Many of these efforts have been spearheaded by the new ARCTICenter at the University of Northern Iowa. The scope of this work is considerable: from impacts of resource development and issues of sustainability in Arctic social-ecological systems to Inuit church music and Arctic Olympic Games, from tracking reindeer using satellite telemetry to examining technological innovation in rural Alaska communities. It seems with the creation of the ARCTICenter that Iowa is gaining particular strength in Arctic social sciences and sustainability science.
UNI-based Creative Arctic project studies creative capital and knowledge economies in the Circumpolar North. The idea came from examining creativity in small single-industry towns in Canada, and transferred to a pan-Arctic inquiry into human creativity and innovation. Although many (including the authors) were initially skeptical of this endeavor, the results exceeded all expectations: many Arctic regions, cities and towns were found to be endowed with creative capital. The methodology designed for Creative Arctic was then extended to small towns in Iowa: we completed a Creative Heartland project, a notable study of local creative economies in Iowa and our neighboring states.
Iowa is called home to more than just humans, with a landscape is teeming with biodiversity. However, some are just visitors. Arctic birds use the prairie landscape in annual flights from the Arctic to the Gulf Coast region and beyond. These feathered, northern neighbors take part in long-distance migration patterns, just like other Arctic species, such as caribou and reindeer.
The ARCTICenter has been involved with researching the largest reindeer herd on the planet that lives in Taimyr, a peninsula in northernmost Siberia. Our graduate research assistants, alongside with Russian colleagues, have been tracking a number of the Taimyr reindeer with biotelemetry satellite collars. These GPS collars allow researchers to track and analyze migration patterns and behavior of this declining herd, providing insight into climate change’s effect on polar migrating species.
Another cluster of Arctic research based at the ARCTICenter deals with sustainable development in the Arctic to include Arctic-FROST, Arctic-COAST and ASUS projects. These projects build an international interdisciplinary and collaboration networks that involve multiple researchers and Arctic residents from all Arctic countries to tackle the issues of community sustainability in the region.
In this way, Iowa researchers bring concerns and aspirations of Arctic communities to greater national and global audiences. Coupled with outreach activities that engage Iowa schools and general public, we strive to place the Arctic into homes and hearts of fellow Iowans, of all Americans, in order to give everyone an opportunity to know and to love the American Arctic and its circumpolar neighbors.
About the authors:
Andrey N. Petrov is Associate Professor of Geography and Director of the Arctic, Cold and Remote Territories Interdisciplinary Center (ARCTICenter) at the University of Northern Iowa. His work is in the area of economic geography, human well-being, and sustainable development in northern communities. You can contact him at andrey.petrov@uni.edu.
Emily Francis is a graduate student in the Department of Geography and researcher with the ARCTICenter. She is a biogeographer who studies migration of caribou and wild reindeer using various remote sensing and telemetry methods. You can contact her at efran@uni.edu.
