Tag Archives: climate

United States leadership in the Arctic

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The Canadian Coast Guard Ship Louis S. St-Laurent ties up to the US Coast Guard Cutter Healy in the Arctic Ocean Sept. 5, 2009. The two ships are taking part in a multi-year, multi-agency Arctic survey that will help define the Arctic continental shelf. Photo: Patrick Kelley, U.S. Coast Guard

The Canadian Coast Guard Ship Louis S. St-Laurent ties up to the US Coast Guard Cutter Healy in the Arctic Ocean Sept. 5,
2009. The two ships are taking part in a multi-year, multi-agency Arctic survey that will help define the Arctic continental shelf. Photo: Patrick Kelley, U.S. Coast Guard


Admiral Robert J. Papp, Jr., USCG (Ret.) is the US State Department’s Special Representative for the Arctic. This article originally appeared in The Circle 01.15.
When I became the first United States Special Representative for the Arctic in July 2014, I had just retired from nearly 40 years in the United States Coast Guard, finishing my career as the 24th Commandant.  Ironically, I both started and ended my Coast Guard service focusing on the U.S. portion of the Arctic. My first assignment was aboard a Coast Guard cutter homeported in Adak, Alaska, in the Aleutian Island chain.  During this assignment, I saw first-hand what the Arctic was all about. At the end of my career, I oversaw the completion of the first-ever Coast Guard Arctic Strategy, an achievement I’m very proud of and that has served our country well.
Now I have the great fortune to lead U.S. Arctic diplomacy and prepare for the United States’ chairmanship of the Arctic Council.  I feel very privileged to do so at such an important time in the history of the Arctic region. Not since the Cold War has there been such a focus on the Arctic and the critical role it plays in the world.  The Arctic Council – the only forum focused solely on the circumpolar Arctic – has evolved in encouraging ways to help Arctic governments and residents meet new challenges.
As chair, Canada has done a fantastic job of raising public awareness about Arctic indigenous peoples and their economic needs. We will follow Canada’s leadership and many of its priorities as we take the chair on April 24, 2015. Our chairmanship theme, “One Arctic:  Shared Opportunities, Challenges, and Responsibilities,” reflects the fact that although there are many dimensions to the Arctic, in the end it is one region of peace, stability and cooperation.
We see three general sub-themes logically flowing from the overarching theme under which we will organize a number of new initiatives:  Arctic Ocean safety, security and stewardship; improving economic and living conditions; and addressing the impacts of climate change.
The Arctic Ocean is still relatively unstudied as compared to the other oceans. We want the Council to support scientific research cooperation through a binding agreement that would reduce barriers to access for ships, equipment, research teams, samples and other logistical issues, and at the same time explore whether a Regional Seas Program for the Arctic Ocean might further cooperation on research priorities and joint efforts. We want to shine a light on the emerging problem of ocean acidification – a direct consequence of climate change that is happening more intensively in the Arctic Ocean than anywhere else owing to its cold temperatures. With the ever-increasing human presence in the Arctic Ocean, we plan to hold tabletop and live exercises among the Coast Guards and rescue services to ensure we are all prepared for the natural and/or man-made disasters that are all but inevitable.
Improving economic and living conditions is a high priority for the United States because all of the Arctic States have citizens living there, albeit in different circumstances.  Much of the Nordic Arctic is well-developed; generally speaking, the Saami indigenous peoples enjoy better economic and living conditions than indigenous peoples in the United States, Canada, Denmark/Greenland and Russia. Our communities are largely remote, often poverty-stricken, and lacking in some of the most basic human needs such as access to clean water, indoor plumbing and sewage services, reliable, affordable electricity and fuel, and good jobs.  These conditions contribute to physical and mental health problems, and eventually to high suicide rates, especially in men and boys. We hope that all eight Arctic States will join us in exploring solutions to these problems, including testing and deploying new technologies through public/private partnerships, encouraging foreign direct investment to stimulate job growth, and sharing expertise and best practices across our borders.
We all know that climate change is happening faster in the Arctic than in other regions of the world; in fact, the impacts of climate change underlie nearly all human activity in the region.  We hope to focus on climate change in our chairmanship in several ways, but most importantly by pressing the Arctic States and the Observer States to reduce their black carbon and methane emissions.
Our country does not contain the largest piece of the Arctic, but we do take the Arctic region very seriously and we look forward to our coming two years in the chair of the Arctic Council.

Improving the lives of Northerners

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Leona Aglukkaq is the Conservative Canadian Member of Parliament for the riding of Nunavut and Minister for the Arctic. This article originally appeared in The Circle 01.15.
As Canada approaches the conclusion of its two-year Arctic Council Chairmanship, I’m proud to say we have worked to directly improve the lives of Northerners and foster environmentally responsible development throughout the Arctic.
Following my appointment as Minister for the Arctic Council in August 2012, I consulted with Northerners from across the Arctic and their message was clear: the well-being and prosperity of the people living in the North must be the top priority for the Council.
For this reason, Canada’s Chairmanship has focused Arctic Council work on the theme, “Development for the People of the North.”
There have been more than a few examples of the projects that we have developed over the course of our two year chairmanship, reflecting this overarching agenda. A key priority has been the establishment of the Arctic Economic Council (AEC), which held its inaugural meeting in September 2014. Many economic and social challenges including high costs of living, skilled labour shortages, and extreme weather are common across the Arctic. From my travels, it became clear to me that we often do not share information well between Arctic peoples. Often times when we face a challenge, someone somewhere else in the Arctic has already faced that same challenge and has a solution. Rather than reinvent the wheel, we, as a Council, should foster collaboration across the Arctic. The AEC will serve as a fundamental mechanism to facilitate Arctic-to-Arctic collaboration between business leaders by providing a forum to discuss common challenges, share best practices and look for business opportunities to develop and benefit the North.
The AEC will also serve as a link between business and government by enabling businesses to inform the work of the Arctic Council. Additionally – and this will be key to its success – Arctic Indigenous peoples have representation on the AEC, which ensures that those living in the North are active participants in decisions affecting their communities.
The AEC’s work is forging ahead, and it has now established working groups on responsible resource development, maritime transportation and stewardship in the Arctic.
Development has many aspects, including economic, social and environmental. These elements should all be considered as we work to achieve sustainable Arctic communities.
With this is mind, Canada is also working with its Arctic Council partners to promote mental wellness across the North. The goal of this project is to identify and share best practices to enable communities to improve support for mental wellness and resiliency of their residents. I am especially looking forward to the Mental Wellness Symposium taking place in Iqaluit, Nunavut in March which will focus on working with communities to advance efforts in mental wellness intervention.
Another key priority of Canada’s Chairmanship has been to incorporate traditional and local knowledge more effectively into the Council’s ongoing work. This knowledge has helped Indigenous peoples survive for millennia, and helps us understand changes in the region. The value of traditional knowledge is immense. By better incorporating it into decision making processes we will ultimately see better results for the Arctic and the people who live there.
The importance of traditional knowledge was recently highlighted in the search for Sir John Franklin’s ships from his failed 1845 voyage. One of his ships, HMS Erebus, was found just off the coast of my hometown of Gjoa Haven, Nunavut (see p. 32). For generations of oral history, Inuit have said the location was near King William Island, which is exactly where Erebus was found. This discovery emphasizes the strength and importance traditional knowledge plays in shaping not only our past, but also our present and our future. Successes such as these should make Inuit and all Arctic Indigenous peoples proud.
Over the course of Canada’s two-year Chairmanship, we have also advanced the Council’s work on other key issues, including climate change, biodiversity conservation, and shipping safety. These actions range from developing a framework for action to reduce black carbon and methane emissions in the Arctic to a new action plan to enhance oil pollution prevention.
A fundamental objective of our Chairmanship has been to strengthen the Arctic Council. This included enhancing the capacity of the six Indigenous Permanent Participant organizations to contribute to the Council’s work. The Permanent Participants have a unique and fundamental role at the Council – they are at the table with the Arctic States to ensure that they are involved in decisions affecting their communities. As we move towards the end of our Chairmanship, we are working closely with our neighbour and the incoming Chair, the United States, to advance our shared priorities for the Arctic region.
I look forward to welcoming our Arctic Council partners to Iqaluit in April for the ninth Ministerial Meeting, where we will highlight our accomplishments, and chart a path for the next two years and beyond.

Red foxes put the heat on arctic foxes in Norway

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Arctic Fox. Dmitry-Deshevykh / WWF-Russia

Arctic Fox. Photo: Dmitry Deshevykh / WWF-Russia


The arctic fox is a tough animal that can withstand harsh winter conditions. But a warming climate has led to challenges that are far more difficult to tackle than 50 degrees below zero and weeks without food.
“The arctic fox is tough. It lives in an environment that many of us shiver just to think about”, says WWF Norway’s predator specialist, Sverre Lundemo. Year round, the arctic fox lives on Norway’s mountains and in the Arctic, even when the day consists of considerably more darkness than light, the wind howls and the temperature creeps far down the thermometer. But it’s not the harsh winter making the fox’s life miserable.
“The biggest challenge for the arctic fox today is probably climate change”, says Lundemo. “Being a specialist in extreme conditions, with the ability to stay warm at -50C and survive without food for several weeks, doesn’t help if its habitat is getting warmer. It loses its competitive advantage”.
As the north warms, several species are moving into the arctic fox’s habitat. The biggest competitor is the arctic fox’s close cousin, the red fox. “The red fox is coming ever further up the mountains and it is both bigger and stronger than the arctic fox. It’s not just a serious competitor for food, but it can also take over arctic fox dens”, says Lundemo.
Red fox. Dmitry-Deshevykh / WWF-Russia

Red fox. Photo: Dmitry Deshevykh / WWF-Russia


Strictly protected species
Norway’s Ministry of Climate and Environment announced this January that the arctic fox should be a priority species under the Nature Diversity Act in Norway. This means that it receives the Act’s strictest protection and that Norwegian authorities must actively ensure that wild arctic foxes can still be found in the country. Together with the wolf, the arctic fox is the most endangered terrestrial predator in Norway. Both are listed as critically endangered on the Norwegian Red List.
What can be done?
The Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet, with wide-ranging effects on all Arctic life. The solutions, however, are global in nature. To slow the most extreme impacts of climate change, nations must first reduce their dependence on oil, coal and gas. We should instead focus on renewable energy sources such as wind, water, sun and geothermal. WWF’s Energy Report shows that it’s possible for the world’s energy to be 100 percent renewable by 2050.
Adapted from an article originally posted at wwf.no.

We are the walrus

From the field,

35,000 walruses haul out at Point Lay, Alaska. September 2014.

35,000 walruses haul out at Point Lay, Alaska. September 2014.


For people who have problems visualizing climate change, this is what it can look like in the Arctic – 35,000 walruses crowded onto an Alaskan beach, driven there by the loss of their preferred resting and feeding place on coastal ice. A similar scene is playing out on beaches across the Bering Strait in Russia. These enormous gatherings follow the warmest global June-August period on record.
The large-scale gatherings are deadly. There are at least 50 carcasses on the Alaskan beach, mostly smaller calves and females, trampled by males. This happens even in years (like this one) when the sea ice does not hit a new record low. The trajectory, and projections are the same – continued ice loss in the Arctic. Seeing the walruses on the beach is a tangible sign of that change.
Less obvious, but no less serious, are the changes in the global climate driven by the continuing loss of Arctic ice – the changes affecting a large proportion of the world’s population. Unusual weather patterns in the mid-latitudes of the northern hemisphere have been linked to the climate disturbance caused by Arctic ice loss. To put that in some perspective, one study estimated the costs on uncontrolled climate change to be $12 trillion by 2095. Another US study released in June projected large-scale impacts on coastal communities, problems with extreme heat, and massive crop losses.
This is not a problem confined to a few thousand walruses on a beach in Alaska. We are the walrus. We can do as they are, adapt the best we can, huddled together, or we can take action, and demand that our governments take action on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and ramping up renewable energy sources.

Climate change shapes polar bears’ past… and future

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© Eric V. Regehr / USGS


Change… Following on the well-traveled path of the Greek philosopher Heraclitus and others since, Isaac Asimov once said:
“It is change, continuing change, inevitable change that is the dominant factor in society today. No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be…”
Alternatively – change is the only constant.
The planet we call home has been changing since it all began some four billion years ago. From the formation of our current atmosphere to the position, shape, and size of the continents that support us, change has indeed been a constant. Therefore, while the world is certainly a very different place today than it was say a thousand years ago, the questions that haunt us now have to do more with the rate, magnitude, and drivers of that change. Answers to those questions are providing some troubling, if not alarming, data regarding human driven changes. Some scientists have even coined a new term for our current era: the anthropocene: the time when human activities became the dominant drivers of key global systems and biodiversity.
Nowhere are these questions more acute, and the transformative affects more apparent than in the Arctic, a region that is warming at more than twice the global average. The face of that change for many is the iconic polar bear. A warming Arctic is rapidly eroding the very sea ice that polar bears need to be- well- to be polar bears as we know them today. While polar bears have clearly survived warming events in the past, there is no reason to infer the bears we have today will be as fortunate. A host of scientific research has clearly laid out those concerns and the measurable impacts of warming to date on some management units like Western Hudson Bay. However, some new observations of hybrid bears in the wild and fresh data on polar bear genetics have some people asking questions.
First, let’s look at the important recent genetic study (overview | original study) that resets our collective understanding of bear evolution and relatedness. This paper was several years in the works and required the collaboration of many scientists from around the world. It will not be the last word on polar bear evolution, but it provides a significant new dataset and several new hypotheses that reshape our understanding of this species. The essence of this first full look into the polar bear genome is that they split from a common bear ancestor with brown bears much longer ago than currently thought (up to 4.5 MYA) and that the two are sister species that have interbred historically. Polar bears likely co-evolved with brown bears, but did not evolve fromthem as previously thought. Researches also theorize that past changes in climate likely brought these two species into closer proximity that allowed for this hybridization. While some of their genes may carry on through cross breeding, there is no reason to believe the animals we know as polar bears would endure.
Genetic data also suggest that polar bears occur in much smaller numbers today than in prehistory. There is also no evidence that early polar bears resemble the highly specialized animals we know today. These historical population estimates appear to track changes in climate, showing a long-term decline in numbers since the last ice age. One result of this decline is that polar bears likely possess far less genetic diversity today than they had historically, making them more vulnerable to recent and projected changes.
At the end of the day, whether polar bears are 150,000 years old or 5 million, in the face of current persistent and rapid climate warming, the world around them (and us) will be unlike anything they have experienced by the end of this century, if not earlier.

Denying climate change in Alaska and Kamchatka

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By Clive Tesar
Climate change would be called undeniable, if it wasn’t for the fact that so many people do deny it. In southern Alaska, large percentages of republican voters deny that it’s happening, according to a large phone survey conducted by the University of New Hampshire. The survey was presented here at the International Congress of Arctic Social Sciences in Akureyri Iceland. Continue reading →

RACER – The Quest to Identify Important Arctic Places in a Changing Climate

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Mush! The only race in town this past week was the Yukon Quest, a grueling dog sled endurance race of 1,000 miles from Whitehorse to Fairbanks. Our WWF team, however, was in Alaska for a different kind of expedition – consulting with some of the world’s leading interdisciplinary science and social science researchers on Arctic climate change.
Co-authored by Hussein Alidina, Peter Ewins and James Snider
Enter the world of RACER – a project of WWF’s Global Arctic Programme that seeks to identify important places in the Arctic in the face of rapid climate change. RACER stands for (deep breath) Rapid Assessment of features and areas for Circumarctic Ecosystem Resilience in the 21st Century.
For the past 18 months, a RACER team of WWF staff from Norway, Russia, USA and Canada have been reviewing key papers, consulting with experts, commissioning analyses, holding workshops, compiling digital maps and crunching data – all to develop the analyses that will identify some of the key places that will remain important for the well-being of arctic ecosystems and human communities as we experience climate change. Continue reading →

Documenting Inuit elder perspectives on climate change

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The WWF Arctic Global Polar Bear specialist, Geoff York, is on a field trip in Churchill on the Hudson Bay, observing and blogging about polar bears. Below is the third blog from our ‘eyes and ears on the tundra’. Read more blogs by Geoff York.

By Geoff York
This year I had a unique opportunity while in town. PBI and Frontiers North Adventures premiered a new film by Zacharias Kunuk and Ian Mauro. The documentary was filmed in Inuktitut with English subtitles and is called Qapirangajuq: Inuit Knowledge and Climate Change. Some of you may recognize Zach from his last award winning project, Atanarjuat (The Fast Runner). This new work is a documentary recording Inuit elder perspectives on climate change across the Nunavut region of the Canadian high arctic. Along with the discussions on observed changes witnessed by elders and their concerns about the future, the film highlights some fairly direct and sometimes angry views around polar bears, conservation efforts, and the scientists who study this animal.
Untitled1 Continue reading →

WWF supports Indigenous youth on climate change canoe trip

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WWF is supporting a group of seven young people from the Arctic as they paddle a traditional canoe along the west coast of North America from Vancouver, Canada, to Neah Bay in the United States. As they progress along the coast, they are stopping in communities along the way to share their stories of the impacts of climate change in the homelands.

Some of the young people are from Greenland. They have seen the sea ice recede in recent years, closing off traditional hunting grounds from dog-team travel. Other paddlers are from the village of Shishmareff in Alaska, where melting permafrost (ice that freezes the ground hard) combined with increasingly severe storms is eroding away the spit of land on which the village stands.
The paddlers are in an eight-metre canoe named ‘The Perfect Storm’ or A’wila in the native language of the Kwakwaka’wakw people. The canoe was carved by native youth and Mervyn Child from the Kwakwaka’wakw Nation out of a fallen cedar tree that fell during a massive storm in 2003 taking down some 10,000 trees in North America’s largest natural park: the Stanley Park in Vancouver, British Columbia in Canada.
A’wila Tribal Canoe Journey 2010 is part of the Tribal Journey to Makah 2010. Every year since the 1980s canoes from all along the coastline of the Pacific Ocean of British Columbia (Canada) and Washington State (US) come together on a journey to celebrate their connection to the land and spiritual well-being.
Below you can find some reflections from the paddlers.
“I came on this trip so I can learn other songs and about a lot of different cultures. Also so I can share my culture and the native games with others. I would like people to know that my culture is important to me. Even though that I barely know how to speak it. It still means a lot to me. Like we would have elders tell us stories and when they tell the stories they would speak it in Inupiaq. After the story is over they would ask us what kind of story it was. Next they would translate it into English. I would also like to share with people what is happening to our home because of climate change because when this is gone, we may also lose a big part of who we are.”
– Meghann Piscoya – Shishmareff
“In Shishmaref our land is eroding. Climate change is taking our land away. We had to move some houses from the East side of the island to the West side because the ocean was washing away the land where the houses were. Sadly our island isn’t big enough to do this much longer. Because the weather has been warmer and warmer we’re not able to pick as much berries as we used to, they ripen too quickly. Some of the lakes dry out and the fish die. Our beach gets smaller like every year. They made a seawall to try and stop it with huge rocks. I hope to show people some of our traditional ways. I’d like people to know how important our lives are. I want to learn songs from other cultures, and I hope to learn more about them.”
– Janelle Pootoogooluk from Shishmaref, Alaska

Northeast Passage: Weather or climate?

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This summer, WWF is helping support two expeditions that will take on some of the world’s most difficult waters, to see first-hand the effects of Arctic climate change. One expedition is sailing across the top of Russia, a journey of 6000 nautical miles through the Northeast Passage, while another is attempting a west to east transit of the Northwest Passage, also by sailing boat, a journey of about 7,000 nautical miles.
Tom Arnbom of Sweden was on the ‘Explorer of Sweden’ though the Northeast Passage, as was WWF Arctic Programme Director Neil Hamilton for much of the trip, replaced near the end by WWF polar bear coordinator Geoff York. On the ‘Silent Sound’ Cameron Dueck of the Open Passage Expedition is filing regular stories from the Northwest passage. Come back for photos and stories throughout the summer, and follow the progress of the boats as they follow in the wake of some of history’s most intrepid explorers.
By Neil Hamilton
We have been anchored for a day in the calm and beautiful Bukta Pronchishchevoy, basking in 15 degree temperatures and bright sunshine.  It’s ideal for filming the rarely seen Laptev walrus (which Frederik is doing) and adjusting to the 6 hour time change between Murmansk and Tiksi which we chose to’ implement’ on ‘ship time’ here.
Such amazing weather here, plus the ice we encountered in the Vilkitsky Strait around Cape Chelyuskin, prompted several questions from the crew about how we can say that climate change is affecting the Arctic.  Couldn’t it just be natural variations in weather?
The answer isn’t simple: first you need to understand the difference between climate and weather. Someone once said to me that “climate is what you want, but weather is what you get”. In other words weather is what actually happens on a given day, whereas climate is the long term average of weather over say 20 or more years.  I’m sure you ‘know’ what the summer is supposed to be like at your home, or favourite beach holiday place: in a sense that is climate; but what actually occurs this year at that place is weather.
In the Arctic there is no doubt that the climate is warming. It’s warming faster and further than anywhere else on Earth.  From 60 degrees North (that’s south of Oslo!) to the Pole, the annual average air temperature has risen more than 2 degrees above the long term average. There is absolutely no question that Nordenskjold, Nansen, and all the other explorers undertook their expeditions in a much colder climate than we have. Seasonally it is now also much warmer, particularly in autumn.  And some places in the Arctic, like the region we are entering now, are warming faster than other places.
But the Arctic has another attribute you don’t see in many other places: sea ice, which plays a dramatic role in both weather and climate. Sea ice forms in winter and covers much of the arctic ocean, and more than half of it melts each summer.  The amount that is melting however is increasing dramatically, a fact we know from satellite imagery.  What we experienced at Cape Chelyuskin was the sea ice equivalent of ‘weather’: a small (well, relatively speaking!) stream of ice broken off the pack around Severnaya Zemlya and pushed south by the wind.  I would have been very surprised if there had been no ice there at all, as this is the northernmost continental point on the planet.
This is part of what I explained to my colleagues on the boat, together with an explanation of how we know what is natural and what is man made climate change.  But that can wait for another blog.