Thawing Permafrost, Melting
Sea Ice and Significant Changes in Natural
Resources Demands Comprehensive Sustainable
Development Plan
10 April 2007 - Dramatic changes to the
lives and livelihoods of Arctic-living communities
are being forecast unless urgent action
is taken to reduce greenhouse gases, according
to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC).
Its Working Group II predicts wide-ranging
thawing of the Arctic permafrost which is
likely to have significant implications
for infrastructure including houses, buildings,
roads, railways and pipelines.
A combination of reduced sea ice, thawing
permafrost and storm surges also threatens
erosion of Arctic coastlines with impacts
on coastal communities, culturally important
sites and industrial facilities.
One study suggests that a three degree
C increase in average summer air temperatures
could increase erosion rates in the eastern
Siberia Arctic by three to five metres a
year.
In some part of the Arctic, toxic and radioactive
materials are stored and contained in frozen
ground. Thawing may release these substances
in the local and wider environment with
risks to humans and wildlife alongside significant
clean up costs.
Warmer temperatures also represent new
economic opportunities but also challenges
in the Arctic. Declines in sea ice are likely
to open up the Arctic to more shipping,
oil and gas exploration and fisheries.
A comprehensive sustainable development
plan is urgently needed for the region to
maximize the opportunities and minimize
potentially damaging impacts.
The future health and well being of Arctic
peoples is a major question. The report,
part of the IPCC’s fourth assessment, recognizes
that Arctic communities and indigenous peoples
lives and livelihoods are intimately linked
with their environment but that this is
already changing.
Inuit hunters are now navigating new travel
routes in order to try to avoid areas of
decreasing ice stability that is making
them less safe. In the future, increased
rainfall may trigger additional hazards
such as avalanches and rock falls.
Inuit hunters are also changing their hunting
times to coincide with shifts in the migration
times and migration routes of caribou, geese
as well as new species moving northwards.
Some impacts of climate change may improve
human well-being. Opportunities for agriculture
and forestry may increase. There is evidence
that Arctic warming could reduce the level
of winter mortality as a result of falls
in cardiovascular and respiratory deaths.
But this will have to be set against possible
increases in drought in some areas, the
emergence and survival of new pests and
diseases, likely contamination of freshwaters
and health and psychological impacts of
the loss of traditional social and ‘kinship’
structures.
However, it is likely that in order for
Arctic communities and cultures to survive
and conserve their centuries-old ways of
life decisive emissions reductions will
be needed alongside adaptation to the climate
change already underway.
Achim Steiner, Executive Director of the
UN Environment Programme (UNEP), said: “The
costs of climate change are already being
paid by the peoples and communities of the
Arctic. The report underlines how this bill
is set to rise unless action is taken to
cut greenhouse gas emissions”.
“The communities and Indigenous peoples
of this region are skilled in adapting to
harsh and often dramatic changing conditions
including sharp fluctuations in the scarcity
and in the abundance of land and marine
resources. However, the rapid changes likely
in the future may overwhelm traditional
coping strategies. It is thus also vital
that communities are assisted in climate
proofing centuries-old lifestyles in order
to survive and to thrive through the 21st
century,” he added.
Permafrost
By the mid-21st century, the area of permafrost
in the northern hemisphere is expected to
decline by around 20 per cent to 35 per
cent.
The depth of thawing is likely to increase
by 30 per cent to a half of its current
depth by 2080.
Permafrost thawing is already having impacts.
It is the likely cause behind the draining
away and disappearance of Arctic lakes in
Siberia during the past three decades over
an area of 500,000 square km.
The costs of relocating subsiding towns
and villages could be high. The price tag
for relocating a village like Kivalina in
Alaska has been estimated to be $54 million.
Marine Resources
Changes in river flows, ice regimes and
the mobilization of sediments as a result
of permafrost thawing are likely to have
impacts on freshwater, estuary-living and
marine biodiversity upon which local and
indigenous people depend.
Lake trout, a cold water fish, is likely
to be affected as will be the spawning grounds
of fish and bottom living life forms as
a result of increased sediments.
Important northern fish species, like broad
whitefish, Arctic char, Arctic grayling
and Arctic cisco are likely to decline as
a result of changes in habitats and predatory
species, perhaps carrying new diseases,
moving into the warming Arctic waters.
Thinning and reduced coverage of sea ice
is likely to have important knock on effects.
Crustaceans, adapted for life at the sea
ice edge, are an important food for seals
and polar cod. Narwhal also depend on sea-ice
organisms.
“Early melting of sea ice may lead to an
increasing mismatch in the timing of these
sea-ice organisms and secondary production
that severely affects populations of the
sea mammals,” says the IPCC report.
However more open water and other climate-related
factors are likely to benefit fish stocks
like cod, herring, walleye and Pollock.
Forests
Ten per cent and possibly as much as 50
per cent of the Arctic tundra could be replaced
by forests by 2100. The narrow, remaining
coastal tundra strips in Russia’s European
Arctic are likely to disappear.
Meanwhile climate change is likely to favour
pests, parasites and diseases such as musk
ox lung worm and nematodes in reindeer.
Forest fires and tree-killing insects such
as spruce bark beetle are likely to increase.
Notes to Editors
The Working Group II report of the Fourth
Assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change can be found at www.ipcc.ch
or www.unep.org
Nick Nuttall, UNEP Spokesperson, / Michael
Williams, UNEP Information Unit for Conventions
Photo: UNEP
