Winter rains may be no good for reindeer

Increased rainfall on snow-covered pastures is causing ice crusts to form over the soil, which makes it difficult for reindeer living in permafrost areas such as Scandinavia, Siberia and Alaska to feed.

They can’t break the ice to get to food, according to New Scientist magazine.

“Researchers have already noticed that winter rainfall seems to be followed by a lot of reindeer deaths,” a recent article in the publication said.

Researchers studied weather data and soil samples from the Arctic island of Spitsbergen.

“From this they worked out that the rainwater seeps through the snow to the ground, where it freezes as heat is lost to the cold permafrost beneath,” the article said.

The researchers pointed to a weather pattern known as the North Atlantic Oscillation as the reason more rain is falling on snow than in previous years. By 2080, they predict rain falling on snow is likely to affect 40 per cent more land than it does at present, squeezing the reindeer into an ever smaller area.

But in Canada’s High Arctic, scientists have known of and studied this phenomenon for decades, and Inuit have known of it and understood its dynamics for much longer, said Mike Ferguson, a Nunavut wildlife biologist.

Ferguson says rain on snow during a specific winter doesn’t necessarily have a negative impact on caribou or reindeer.

Where crust forms in the snow layer, tundra caribou can actually break and remove large chunks to access forage.

“Knowledgeable Inuit elders rarely make such simplistic statements as researchers being interviewed by the press appear to make,” Ferguson said in response to the article.