Status: Ongoing
Funding: NordForsk, Nordic Centre of Excellence
IACN: partner with Stefansson Arctic Institute in WP5
ARCPATH: Arctic Climate Predictions: Pathways to Resilient, Sustainable Societies.
ARCPATH is part of the Joint Nordic Initiative on Arctic Research. This was established in order to generate new insights into both the challenges and opportunities confronting the Arctic region. The Responsible Development of the Arctic: Opportunities and Challenges – Pathways to Action programme is cross-disciplinary, with three thematic priority areas:
- Drivers of Change - Interactions and Impacts
- Arctic Resource Development in a Global Context
- Waters, Ecologies and Life Environments
Other Nordic Centres of Excellence funded under this initiative include: Resource Extraction and Sustainable Arctic Communities (REXSAC); Reindeer Husbandry in a Globalizing North – Resilience, Adaptations and Pathways for Actions (ReiGN); Climate-change Effects on the Epidemiology of Infectious Diseases and the Impacts on Northern Societies (CLINF). These centres are funded for the period 2016-2020.
IACN & ARCPATH
IACN with its member the Stefansson Arctic Institute (SVS) is involved with ARCPATH in WP5.
WP5 - Responsible Governance, Security and Abrupt Climate Change in North Atlantic Arctic Coastal Communities
Leader: Níels Einarsson; Co-Leader: Astrid Ogilvie.
Participants: SAI; UoI; International Partners: INSTAAR, RRU, NSIDC, UiT.
WP5 forms a corollary to WP4, and will focus on the same research locations, but will consider broad impacts of both rapid climate and socioeconomic changes on northern communities, and will have a specific emphasis on fisheries governance issues. Although higher sea temperatures lead to increased biological productivity and higher biomass, certain fish stocks, such as capelin, have started to behave unpredictably and, together with herring, may be straying away from traditional fishing grounds. Climate change is also currently affecting fish stocks in a dramatic way with new commercially-valuable fish species becoming more prominent, in particular mackerel. In Iceland, some local municipalities welcome plans for the developing of harbour facilities for trans-Arctic ocean shipping. Such opportunities may benefit communities and regions, for example by creating work opportunities, but also pose challenges and risks for vulnerable coastal marine ecosystems and rural fishing communities, not least due to the risk of oil spills. The potential risks associated with industrial impacts on social and ecological systems is often not translated into policy, not least security policy, where environmental impacts continue to struggle to compete for attention despite the demonstrated increasing risks. The “risk” vs “security” nexus plays a very important role in interdisciplinary projects such as this where raw data from the natural sciences must be understood in relation to social and political systems and “translated” into policy recommendations. Thus, industrial activities of this magnitude call for an interdisciplinary feasibility and risk and policy assessment, including impacts on ecosystems, social and economic livelihoods. An important goal of the ARCPATH project is thus to address research gaps and consider the implications, risks, and challenges of increases in shipping and other marine-based industrial economic activity in North Atlantic Arctic waters.
See also:
Partners to ARCPATH
Project Leader Dr. Yongqi Gao
Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center
Bergen, Norway
Project Co-Leader Dr. Astrid Ogilvie
Stefansson Arctic Institute
Akureyri, Iceland
Prof. Noel Keenlyside
Geophysical Institute, University of Bergen
Bergen, Norway
Prof. Gunhild Hoogensen Gjørv
Arctic University of Tromsø
Tromsø, Norway
Dr. Shuting Yang
Danish Meterological Institute
Copenhagen, Denmark
Dr. Torben Koenigk
Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute
Norrköping, Sweden
Prof. Brynhildur Daviosdottir
Institute of Sustainable Studies, University of Iceland
Reykjavik, Iceland
Dr. Marianne H. Rasmussen
Húsavík Research Center, University of Iceland
Reykjavik, Iceland
Dr. Ke Fan
Nansen-Zhu International Research Center, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Beijing, China
Dr. Leslie King
School of Environment and Sustainability, Royal Roads University,
Victoria, Canada
Dr, James R. McGoodwin
INSTAAR, University of Colorado
Colorado, USA
Dr. Sergey K. Gulev
Sea Atmosphere Interaction And Climate Laboratory, P.P. Shirshov Institute of Oceanology, Russian Academy of Science (IORAS)
Moscow, Russia