The Fate of The Arctic In The 21st Century

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Demilitarizing The Arctic.

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China And The Arctic.

The Changing Geopolitics of The Arctic.

An excerpt from, “The Arctic’s Uncertain Future” By Grace van Deelen, Eos, November 15, 2024:

In the past few decades, sea ice—the engine of the Arctic climate—has diminished dramatically, with the total area of ice cover down about 50% from the 1980s. Precipitation patterns now bring more rain and less snow to the Arctic. Thawing long-frozen ground allows for more severe erosion. And vegetation is growing faster and farther north in response to rising air temperatures.

. . .Scientists’ confidence in sea ice projections comes from the wealth of data and studies already done, as well as from the relative simplicity of the system: Sea ice responds to temperature changes in the atmosphere and ocean, as well as to wind patterns, Serreze said. But the extent to which its disappearance will affect the Arctic and global atmospheric circulation and weather is still unsettled.

“It’s a complicated place, and there’s still a lot we don’t understand completely,” Francis said.

An excerpt from, “The Future of Arctic Sea Ice Revisited” By Dr. Flavio Lehner, Polar Bears International, August 28, 2023:

However, there is also some uncertainty on how sensitive Arctic sea ice itself is to warming. For a given amount of warming, different climate models predict different amounts of sea ice loss. Fortunately, we have now over 40 years of satellite-based measurements of both Arctic sea ice and temperature, allowing scientists to estimate this temperature sensitivity from observations directly: for every 1°C (1.8°F) of warming, the Arctic sea ice shrunk by about 800,000 km2 (about 300,000 square miles or the combined size of Texas and New Mexico).

It turns out that most climate models show a weaker temperature sensitivity than observed – in other words, they underestimate how vulnerable sea ice is to warming. Two recent studies, by Bonan et al. (reported on here) and Kim et al., have used this insight to provide updated predictions of when the Arctic will be ice-free: both predict it to happen about 10 years earlier than we thought based on the climate models. The Kim study, published this year, made headlines for concluding that an ice-free Arctic is now inevitable, even under the most optimistic emissions scenario. It’s important to understand that they found individual years to dip below the “ice-free” threshold of 1 million km2, not that the sea ice disappears completely to never return. Still, this is an alarming result suggesting we have less time than we thought to prevent this profound transformation of the Arctic ecosystem.

An excerpt from, “The Arctic region in the twenty-first century” Ditchley, September 2009:

For the first Ditchley conference of the new season, we gathered under the auspices of Canadian Ditchley in the splendid setting of Le Chateau Frontenac in Quebec City to discuss the opening up of the Arctic Ocean under the impact of climate change.  All the Arctic coastal states were represented, together with a broad range of other expertise and interests, and a lively exchange materialised.

Within the relatively short time available for an enormous field, it was important to decide the urgent issues.  With the international machinery so far working well, particularly in and around the Arctic Council, most participants felt that it was important to identify, and if possible to close, the gaps.  There was, not unexpectedly, a difference of view as to whether or not the Arctic Council had everything under control.  But no-one contested the importance of greater clarity about who were the valid shareholders in what the Arctic had to offer;  how effective the current arrangements were and what more was needed by way of rules and standards;  what, by comparison with other sensitive areas for development, made the Arctic special;  and how different areas of  interest could be pursued internationally with as little disagreement as possible. 

The conference benefited from some excellent presentations on what was actually happening to the Arctic region, still one of the world’s most hostile environments, with or without melting ice.  These brought out the inevitability of change and the complexity of the interlinking issues.  Our conversation then proceeded to cover a significant amount of ground, which is worth spelling out:  the territorial arrangements, claims and rights of access and passage;  the implications of climate change in all its aspects;  the effect of changes on the peoples of the north;  the exploitation of the Arctic’s economic assets;  the requirements of shipping interests and the implications of much higher shipping volumes;  the expansion of tourism;  access to fishing stocks and the effect of climate change on fish populations;  biodiversity protection;  the need for new infrastructure to serve greater activity and larger populations in the north;  the impact of science and the need to organise relevant new projects;  new initiatives in education and training for Arctic matters;  and, not least, the governance of all of this.