Key Advice From Arctic Resilience Report: Prepare For Surprises

[hatrack]

The Arctic Resilience Report, published today, is the first comprehensive assessment of ecosystems and societies in the region. The signs of change are everywhere in the Arctic: Temperatures nearly 20°C above the seasonal average are being registered over the Arctic Ocean. Summer sea-ice cover has hit new record lows several times in the past decade. Infrastructure built on permafrost is sinking as the ground thaws underneath.

Yet those are only snapshots of a much larger trend. A major new report shows that Arctic ecosystems are fundamentally threatened by climate change and other impacts of human activities. It identifies 19 tipping points (or “regime shifts”) that can and have occurred in Arctic marine, freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems. These regime shifts affect the stability of the climate and landscape, plant and animal species’ ability to survive, and Indigenous Peoples’ subsistence and ways of life.

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"One of the study’s most important findings is that not only are regime shifts occurring, but there is a real risk that one regime shift could trigger others, or simultaneous regime shifts could have unexpected effects,” said Johan L. Kuylenstierna, executive director of the Stockholm Environment Institute.

Johan Rockström, executive director of the Stockholm Resilience Centre and co-chair of the project, added: “How regime shifts interact with one another is poorly understood. If multiple regime shifts reinforce each other, the results could be potentially catastrophic. The variety of effects that we could see means that Arctic people and policies must prepare for surprise. We also expect that some of those changes will destabilize the regional and global climate, with potentially major impacts.”

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https://www.sei-international.org/-news-archive/3594

[WhiteTara]

1. Thanks for the heads up on this one

not that we'll be able to do much about it, but it's always good to know.