Adaptation Actions for a Changing Arctic: Perspectives from the Barents Area

256

Adaptation Actions for a Changing Arctic: Perspectives from the Barents Area

defined as a community’s capacity “ to learn, share and make use of their knowledge of social and ecological interactions and feedbacks, to deliberately and effectively engage in shaping adaptive or transformative social-ecological change ” (Arctic Council, 2016); see also Chapter 8. Chapter 8 of this report makes the case that building resilience involves cultivating the diversity that is necessary for reorganization and renewal of a system, and combining different types of knowledge for learning and management. While the systems perspective represents a shift from compartmentalized command and control management of one specific resource towards focusing on interactions between different resource systems, it does lack attention to power issues, such as who defines the system and for whom it should be resilient (Arctic Council, 2013). In summary, the goals of adaptation actions need to include attention to at least two important dimensions. One is their outcome in terms of normative policy goals, such as basic human security or the SDGs. The other is how they affect the capacity to deal with further changes. In both cases, there is a need to develop tools with which decision-makers in various contexts can assess the potential impacts of their decisions. Some such work is underway. An example is the Arctic Social Indicators Report, which is an Arctic-specific development of the global Human Development Index (Nymand Larsen et al., 2010, 2015).Another is work related to the implementation of the global SDGs. To ensure that adaptation actions support sustainable development over the long term, there is also a need to integrate measures to increase the capacity to live with change and unpredictability. Chapters 1 to 9 have mapped the social and environmental landscapes of the Barents area in which adaptation takes place in the present and have also highlighted some future challenges and opportunities. However, the approach used also shows the limits of analytical frameworks that start by describing drivers and impacts of change. This information is an important knowledge base for adaptation actions but in itself is not enough for assessing the outcomes of adaptation activities. New tools are needed to ensure that today’s adaptation does not create future problems by undermining the long-term capacity to adapt. However, such tools are not currently available and an important insight from the AACA process is that assessing adaptation actions in ways that can guide local communities and policy-makers at the national and international level will require concerted efforts at method development. 10.2 Adaptation in context Adaptation to climate change takes place within the context of changing environmental, political, societal, and cultural conditions. The regional environmental changes expected from global climate change are summarized in Box 10.1, while Box 10.2 proves a summary of global social drivers of change in relation to the Barents area. The complex and interacting challenges arising from a combination of global drivers of change and the unique characteristics of the Barents area affect both barriers to and potentials for adaptation.

Box 10.1 The context of environmental change This box describes the changing environmental context in the Barents area and identifies those issues that have major implications for adaptation.The material is based on information presented in Chapters 2, 4, and 6. Climate and weather The Arctic is warming faster than the global average. While there is strong confidence in the general trend towards a warmer climate,there is uncertainty about the extent of future temperature change.Downscaledmodel results suggest that winter temperatures in the Barents area are likely to increase by 3–10°C between 2010 and 2080 if future greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions follow a low emission scenario. However, results from some regional climate models using higher GHG emission scenarios suggest that winter temperatures in the Barents areamay rise by considerablymore (Chapter 4). Future summer temperatures are also likely to rise but not at the same rate. Overall, precipitation is expected to increase in the Arctic and to increase more than the global average and with a greater proportion of rain than snow compared to the past.While the overall picture is robust, it is harder to estimate the magnitude of change in precipitation. The future will continue to see major year-to-year variations in temperature, precipitation, wind, snow, and ice. Some of themost difficult conditions to adapt to concern extreme weather events and their consequences. In the Barents area, extreme weather events can cause avalanches, floods, and rock and mud slides. Storms that affect offshore activities, transportation and infrastructure are another example (Chapter 6). The Polar Low is an extreme weather event particular to the marine areas of the Barents area. Polar Lows develop when cold air from the polar ice cap is forced out over the warmer waters of the North Atlantic Current creating storms that are local and short- lived but with hurricane-force winds and sometimes heavy snowfall. Such events pose a serious threat to all offshore activities owing to their rapid onset and because they create weather conditions that are beyond the operating limits for aviation and oil and gas operations. Climate change is likely to cause Polar Lows to shift northward to the northern and central Barents area (Chapter 4). While it remains difficult to know whether the frequency of extreme weather events and storms will increase in the future, preparedness for such events will continue to be critical for adaptation. Ecosystem changes Changes in climate have direct impacts on snow and ice, as well as on terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecosystems. In addition to climate change, ecosystems are influenced by chemical pollution, invasive species and an intensification of human activities such as shipping and extractive industries (Chapter 6).