PUBLICATION The Ottawa Citizen DATE Fri 06 Dec 2002 BYLINE Rick Westhead PANGNIRTUNG, Nunavut -  Northern exposure bad for hockey:  The effects of global warming are being felt in the north more than any other place in the world, and the rinks are melting, reports Just south of the Arctic Circle, on the shore of Canada's Pangnirtung fiord, the doors to the Aksayuk hockey arena are locked shut. It's too warm to play. "Who would have thought that in the winter we wouldn't be able to freeze ice?" asked Tom Thompson, chairman of Hockey North, the governing body for amateur hockey in Canada's Northwest and Nunavut territories. For Pangnirtung and other northern villages that rely on nature to keep rinks cold enough, the hockey season is shorter than ever. Global warming is keeping the temperature above the consistent -20C needed to build a rink, said David Phillips, a senior climatologist with the Meteorological Service of Canada. "It's warming in the north faster than anywhere else in the world, and those who live there are like canaries in a mine shaft," he said. "They're dealing with this problem first." In Inuvik, Canada's largest city north of the Arctic Circle, the average winter nighttime temperature rose to -28.6C in the 1990s from -32.6 in the 1960s, according to government scientists. The world's average temperature, meantime, has increased 0.6 degrees over the past century. In the remote village of Resolute, 482 kilometres from the magnetic North Pole, the average nighttime temperature in winter rose to -32.8 in the 1990s from -33.8 in the 1970s. Scientists expected Arctic regions would experience faster warming in part because snow and ice reflect solar energy back to the atmosphere. As the amount of ice cover shrinks, the impact of warming is multiplied. Also, drier Arctic air dissipates less heat than the seawater and moisture in the air to the south. "In the north, they just don't have a buffer," said Tom Ackerman, chief scientist with the U.S. Department of Energy's Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Program. Since the late 1960s, the extent of snow cover in high latitudes has declined by 10 per cent, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Scientists attribute much of the rising world temperature to such human activities as the burning of fossil fuels, which creates greenhouse gases that trap heat. For amateur and youth hockey in northern Canada, the warming trend is "sapping the strength out of the sport," said Jim MacDonald, president of the minor-league hockey association at Rankin Inlet, about 1,600 kilometres north of Winnipeg on the shores of Hudson Bay. These days, Rankin Inlet's hockey season runs from December or January to March. A decade or so ago, October to April was the norm, MacDonald said. In the 1,300-person hamlet of Pangnirtung, hockey is played from about mid-December through March. Fifteen years ago, the season ran from September to April, said David Kilabuk, who has coached amateur hockey for 18 years. "You'd think we'd be skating all year around," he said. "That's not the case." The hockey season in Sanikiluaq, located on an island in Hudson Bay, was limited to January to March last year. It was so warm the year before the season spanned just two weeks, said Louisa Tookalook, the hamlet's recreation co-ordinator. The Arctic has produced few National Hockey League stars. Columbus Blue Jackets forward Geoff Sanderson of Hay River, Northwest Territories (population 3,611), is an exception. Still, outdoor and enclosed hockey arenas are a community focal point in the far north, where villages get just two or three hours of sunlight each winter morning. Without the opportunity to skate through the winter, recreation reverts to indoor sports more often associated with summer: floor hockey and basketball in gymnasiums.  "It's dark here day in and day out, and most people live in small houses with eight or 10 others, so the rink is just where everyone goes," said MacDonald, who left London, Ont., in 1977 for a clerking job with the Hudson's Bay Co. At the Polar Bear Plate hockey tournament in Rankin Inlet two years ago, weekend passes that cost $25 were scalped for as much as $180, MacDonald said. To build a refrigerated ice surface maintained by a diesel engine takes at least $250,000, plus operating costs, according to MacDonald. The government recently completed a $2.9-million facility that includes a year-round rink for the Nunavut city of Kimmirut, though Nunavut Premier Paul Okalik says it will be the last for some time. Health care and education will take priority over hockey, he said. In October, MacDonald proposed that the Canadian Hockey Association investigate plastic surfaces. Companies like closely held Kwik Rink of Maple Grove, Minnesota, make one-inch-thick synthetic rinks, often used by touring figure skating shows. The surface requires few ongoing costs beyond vacuuming. Still, a National Hockey League regulation-sized rink would cost about $440,000 U.S. MacDonald's suggestion was rejected. Hockey isn't the only sign of faster warming in the Arctic. Robins, puffins and sea lions, all indigenous to southern Canada, have been spotted in the Arctic, said climatologist Phillips. Lightning and thunder, which feed off warm air, are now more common than in past decades, he said. In the western Hudson Bay area, residents run snowmobiles across frozen ice floes to visit family and friends, a journey made more dangerous because of the earlier spring breakup of the ice. Canadian scientists say the thaw is occurring two weeks earlier than 20 years ago. Polar bears are affected, too. With ice breaking up earlier, the animals have less time to feed on ringed seals, and adult bears have been getting scrawnier and females are having fewer cubs, according to Canadian officials. Now, the bears are starting to wander into villages in search of food, Okalik said in an interview. Canadian officials also predict instabilities for roads, airstrips and buildings as more of the permafrost melts. "The temperatures are throwing chaos into every part of our life," Okalik said.