Ryan: So...ah...do you get many UFOs up in the Arctic?

Morgan: No but I once saw a frying pan fly out of a wall tent when my mum was shooing away a wolverine. But no flying saucers. Now that you mention it, those things sure do look like UFOs.

Inukshuk: Those are not UFOs. They are OTCs.

Ryan: Well that really helps!

Inukshuk: That stands for Open Top Chambers.

Ryan: O...K. So, if they're not full of little green men, what's in them?

Inukshuk: Warm air.

Ryan: That's it! They're some kind of hot air flying machines.

Inukshuk: These chambers are not designed for locomotion. They are greenhouses actually. They have been quietly sitting here, warming little green plants, since 1992.

Ryan: Where's "here?"

Inukshuk: The high arctic tundra of Ellesmere Island. Alexandra Fjord to be precise.

Morgan: Wow! You can't get much farther north unless you're headed for the North Pole. Can you grow pumpkins in those things? My aunt down south once made me a pie from home-grown pumpkins - what flavour!

Ryan: Yeah, we sometimes roast the seeds and...

Inukshuk: I'm sorry, no pumpkins.

Morgan: I thought you said these were greenhouses?

Inukshuk: That is correct. But the whole point of these units is to warm the air around native species of arctic plants to see how they might respond to global warming. If things warm up, might these plants blossom earlier? Might they produce more flowers? ... Might they grow larger? ...These are the kinds of questions that botanists are trying to answer with these greenhouses.

Ryan: Wouldn't these things work better if they had lids?

Inukshuk: You don't want it too warm in there. Computer models of global climate change predict warming of only a few degrees. These units have been carefully designed to simulate these subtle differences in temperature. The angle and height of the glass, the amount of wind reduction and air circulation - all this has been considered to test the effects of predicted climate change on these plants.

Ryan: So...it's kind of like faking climate change in a box?

Inukshuk: Exactly.

Morgan: I get it. These things let you fast-forward into a warmer future to see what our plants might look like in my grandchildren's day. These aren't UFOs. They're time machines!

Inukshuk: Well that's not quite...(pause while he reconsiders this idea for a moment) Yes indeed, you're quite right.

Morgan: What are they doing?

Inukshuk: They're measuring daily leaf growth, counting flower stalks, taking temperature readings, that sort of thing.

Ryan: And what have they discovered?

Inukshuk: Some plants grow larger when warmed. Others seem to move more quickly from buds to flowers. There is even some suggestion that warmer temperatures may, for some species, result in a greater number of flowers and seeds.

Ryan: More flowers? What a cheerful thought.

Inukshuk: It depends how you look at it. There might indeed be some positive effects of warming especially if you are an insect that sucks flower nectar, or a bird that eats those bugs. More flowers could, in turn, mean more berries, good news if you're a tundra grizzly bear who eats thousands of berries a day to fatten up for a long winter's nap.

Morgan: More berries sure sounds good to me! We collect them by the bucket load in the fall and use them all year - blueberries, cranberries, cloudberries, crowberries... So what's the downside to all this? Who could possibly lose with bigger, healthier plants?

Inukshuk: Well, since you asked, caribou could be among the losers.

Morgan: Not caribou! We depend on caribou, always have, always will. I thought you said that the plants might get bigger. What's so bad...

Inukshuk: What is a caribou's favourite food?

Morgan: Lichen of course. Everybody knows that.

Inukshuk: And what could happen to those lichens if these small, ankle-high plants grow bigger and taller?

Morgan: Well...They might get...crowded out?

Inukshuk: Shaded out, to be precise. They need light too. Across large stretches of the Arctic, lichen communities could suffer and, in turn, so would the caribou.

Ryan: That sounds gloomy. But what can you honestly say about global warming's impact on arctic plants and animals from this one little study site at the top of the world?

Inukshuk: Good point. It's still too early to tell and, as they say, all the data are not yet in. There are indeed several other arctic plant warming experiments exactly like this going on around the world but many of these are just beginning. Though you called these time machines, it will take many years of data from many sites to better understand how these plants - and the animals that depend on them - might respond to climate change. More sites are being established each year to help scientists paint a clear picture of the future.

Morgan: (in theatrical radio commercial voice) Stay tuned folks. A fleet of pop-top greenhouses may soon be coming to a tundra patch near you!

Ryan: So if a bunch of these things land...

Inukshuk: Please remember these units are not equipped to fly. They are merely plant growth chambers.

Morgan: Right. I mean...If a bunch of these things somehow pops up near my backyard, couldn't I toss a few pumpkin seeds in just one of them?... (as a dreamy aside) Umm, I can almost smell that pie now. As a scientific experiment of course!

Inukshuk: I'm sorry, no.

Morgan: How about planting a few potatoes? There's nothing like...

Inukshuk: Uh-uh.

Morgan: Beefsteak tomatoes?

Inukshuk: Definitely not.

Morgan: Looks like I'll have to build my own greenhouse. I guess these pop-top thingamajigs are pretty valuable tools for predicting the future.

Inukshuk: You guessed right, my friend. Very valuable. For you, for the land, for the caribou - everybody.

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