They may not fly around the world delivering presents, but Rudolph and his fellow reindeer may be busy affecting their local climate
IT USED to happen like clockwork. Every spring, the reindeer herders of Scandinavia would guide their animals northwards from the tree line of the polar circle’s southern edge, across the wide, flat expanse of tundra, to the shores of the Arctic Ocean. Its salty spray, rich in nutrients, fertilises coastal pastures that are perfect for fattening up the young calves. Every autumn the herders would make their way back inland.
Now the rhythm of the seasons is being thrown into disarray. “,” is how one herder described the difference in 2011. “By the first Sunday in Advent, it was always winter… But now the snow doesn’t arrive until Christmas, it doesn’t go cold, and it sleets and it rains.” Rivers that once froze solid now flow with water, blocking the herders’ routes across the tundra.
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This story could have a happy ending, however. Reindeer and their herders may be an unexpected weapon in the fight against global warming, by creating a micro-climate that slows the melting of ice and snow, and by protecting the ecosystem from invading species. They may not fly around the world delivering gifts, but Rudolph and his kin could still help save Christmas in the Arctic.
Reindeer grazing grounds seem impervious to climate change (Image: Bryan and Cherry Alexander/Arcticphoto.co.uk)
Close bonds
Of the many different peoples who occupy Northern Europe, it is the indigenous Sami and Nenet tribes that have formed the closest bond with reindeer. Pekka Aikio, former president of the Sami parliament in Finland, describes the relationship as a kind of symbiosis. In exchange for transportation, mobile shelter, warm clothes and food, herders protect the reindeer from wolves and other predators and keep them healthy. Their routes are planned to allow the ecosystem to recover after grazing. “You might not see anyone for weeks on end, but the system is carefully managed,” says Bruce Forbes at the University of Lapland in Rovaniemi, Finland, who has been working with Nenet herders for more than two decades.
Given how finely attuned the herders are to their environment, it’s no wonder that they have noticed subtle shifts in their wilderness over recent years. Records show that temperatures across the region are rising twice as fast as the global average. The most widely reported consequence is how the winter blanket of snow and ice shrinks with every passing year. But to the herders, other changes stand out. Warm spring temperatures are breaking the icy grip of winter earlier, forcing tribes to leave sooner for the Arctic shore. In the summer, plagues of mosquitoes drive the reindeer to distraction. Running wild each time they are bitten, the reindeer burn off so much energy that they are sometimes too thin to survive the following winter.
Video: Why Rudolph the reindeer has a red nose
The herders have also noticed a shift in the vegetation of the tundra as the low shrubs make way for trees. That makes it harder to herd their animals as they lose sight of strays blocked by the foliage. These changes have not escaped the notice of climate scientists. Studies show the entire region is getting greener, fuelled by warmer temperatures, shorter winters and changing weather patterns.
This is no cosmetic tweak. The greening of the Arctic is putting local climate change on turbo-boost. Taller shrubs poke through the tundra’s winter blanket, casting shadows where once there were none. The dark patches absorb more of the sun’s warm rays than solid white cover, meaning that snow melt accelerates and temperatures rise further. As leaves unfurl in spring, the dark foliage can bring warmer summer temperatures too. Ground reflectance is so important that some Alpine ski resorts are covering their glaciers with white fabric in efforts to extend their life spans.
“The greening of the Arctic is putting local climate change on turbo-boost”
In the Arctic, a less drastic approach could be taken. Reindeer are ravenously hungry for the dwarf birch and crowberry bushes that are creeping through the landscape – so why not let them graze at the saplings before the plants are tall enough to break through the snow cover? Certainly, it can’t be the only cure to the region’s ills, but several Scandinavian universities have recently teamed up in the project to see just how much reindeer help the environment.
Some clues come from the landscapes of ancient milking grounds. These are small clearings, created over centuries, where large herds have been kept in one place for weeks at a time. The animals trample the shrubs into the ground and only long grasses can grow back, so the land becomes a meadow. The changes are long lasting: Forbes says that some meadows have survived for centuries after they have been abandoned, and even recent warming hasn’t managed to coax the shrubs back. “They’re pretty impervious to climate,” he says.
For more direct evidence, Scandinavian researchers are using satellite imaging to compare areas that are grazed in the summer with ones that are not. As expected, the grazed areas . The differences may be small, but team-member Juval Cohen of the Finnish Meteorological Institute’s Arctic Research Centre argues that it could still be enough to slow the shrinkage of the region’s snow cover.
Besides creating a cooler micro-climate, the grazing reindeer might also help protect local species from invaders. As the climate warms and southerly plants and trees march north, the open tundra could become a boreal forest, destroying the ecosystem of wild flowers.
To find out if the reindeer can help preserve the local ecology, Johann Olofsson of Umeå University in Sweden and his team have let reindeer loose onto a landscape artificially implanted with warmth-loving species. Preliminary results suggest that the . “The best scientific guess at the minute is that reindeer grazing is providing a valuable ecological service,” he says.
It remains to be seen how these findings should be turned into action. Not all reindeer herders drive their stock through long migrations – some spend most of the year weaving in and out of the sparse forests of the Arctic’s southern rim. Olofsson says perhaps those herders could be encouraged to spend more time on the tundra, but he is wary of meddling in Sami and Nenet traditions. “My job is to recognise that they provide a service and the more time they spend in the tundra, the bigger the service,” he says.
Aikio welcomes the findings that his people can help shape the ecosystem, but he doesn’t doubt the reindeer’s ability to survive. “The reindeer is very well adapted to all kinds of changes, even if we are speaking of climate change.” For the sake of the Arctic, let’s hope he’s right.
Won’t you guide my sleigh tonight?
Rudolph’s glow is legendary – but the question of whether reindeer really have red noses has only just been answered.
The first clues appeared in 2007, when Stewart Teece and Bernard Foëx of Central Manchester University Hospitals in the UK published a tongue-in-cheek report in the , investigating the reindeer’s rosy complexion.
With the alleged assistance of “Santa’s Little Helpers”, Teece and Foëx reviewed nine papers and concluded that the animals had erythema – a term used to describe redness of the skin. They suggested it came through dense facial veins, which might help cool reindeer being chased by wolves before their brains fry.
“In winter, resting reindeer will not have a red nose, but when frantically circumnavigating the globe their noses will glow as they try to lose heat,” wrote Teece and Foëx.
It is not all jest. Last year, Arnoldus Blix at the University of Tromsø in Norway and his colleagues took close-up footage of reindeer noses using video microscopes. They found that the network of blood vessels is 25 per cent denser than in humans. , suggesting Rudolph could still guide the sleigh even if Santa mistakenly hitched him to it the wrong way around after one too many glasses of festive cheer.
This article appeared in print under the headline “Rudolph to the rescue”
