Identified impacts of climate change on reindeer herding

In this video excerpt, Anders Erling, a Pite Saami reindeer herder, provides a specific example of how climate change is becoming a reality in the far north. In this case, he recalls the winter of 2014-2015 while paging through his calendar. He notes in particular how the temperature was significantly above freezing on New Year’s Day and that it rained – both of which are highly unusual if not unheard of at that time of the year, when daylight is limited to around 4 dim hours of light per day. Just as unusual, during the previous mid-summer holiday (in late June), it snowed. Although he does not discuss this directly in this excerpt, rain in the middle of winter causes the top layer of snow to melt and then freeze again into a thick sheet of ice when temperatures return to below the freezing point. As a result, reindeer have a very difficult time digging in the snow to reach mosses (their natural winter food sources). This obviously makes survival much more difficult not only for the reindeer, but for the Saami whose lives are dependent on them for food and economic livelihood.