What will I learn? After taking this course you will have an understanding of Arctic landscapes, how they were formed and how they are changing. You will also learn how scientists from countries around the North are working together to understand how these changes will affect the People of the North and the global community. You will experience a range of scientific topics, up-to-date-methods for understanding our environment, and the current consensus views on the future of the Arctic environment. Do I need prior knowledge? No prior knowledge is needed for this course; participants should only come equipped with natural curiosity and a willingness to invest time in understanding an environmental issue of global concern. The terms and concepts are targeted at an educated public, not specialists, but resources will be provided so those who are motivated can explore some issues in more depth.
Lecture 10. Conclusion
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The Changing Arctic
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The global Community affected by the changing Arctic
This module is dedicated to challenges and opportunities of Arctic change; winners and losers; widening inequalities.
与讲师见面
Terry V. CallaghanProfessor of Botany, Honorary Doctor
[SOUND]
[MUSIC]
Which is true?
A, ecosystem services are provisioning services that are used directly by people.
B, ecosystem services are regulatory services
affecting people's lives but not used directly.
C, ecosystem services are cultural services that include aesthetic values,
spirituality, and sense of place.
Answer, all of the above, A, B, and C.
>> So far in the course you've had a lot of technical information about the Arctic
and the various components of the Arctic landscape and its biology.
What I want to do in this episode is ask the question, so what?
What does it mean?
Why should we care about what's happening?
Is it just for scientists and academics to be interested in?
Or does it actually affect the people who live there, or you?
The Arctic is vast, as we've seen.
The changes in its environment are multifaceted.
So many things are changing, all at the same time.
And the potential impact could be serious for local populations and
the global communist that means you.
So let's explore the implications little more, in the very first introduction you
saw, that effects on the local people Green Land for
example, and possible effects to see that will rise in people on Bangladesh.
If we look at the Arctic people, the changes we see in the Arctic
environment in biology, affects their daily life.
It affects ecosystem services and
the well-being of all the people that live in the Arctic.
Their weather conditions change.
Their patterns for hunting change.
The species they hunt changes.
The food changes.
The way that travel changes, everything changes.
But in addition to those climate changes, other things are changing too.
And we heard at one stage about globalization.
My picture just shows one,
the impact of an extreme winter warming even that you heard about on animals
that die if they can't break through ice layers and then you see globalization.
People living a traditional way of life as far as possible but
then relying on their mobile phones and their snow scooters and
using all the modern technology that they can.
Some sort of conflict about way of life there.
But the Arctic residents are not the only people who will suffer from climate
warming.
We will all be affected in some way.
How? Well,
firstly, you heard that the Arctic has, traditionally has high albedo.
It reflects a lot of radiation back into space.
But you've also heard that the period of snow in the ground is changing,
that the vegetation is growing and
you can see here the dark vegetation absorbing radiation.
Whereas where you have the snow accumulations in the experiments and
also in the mountain tops you have high albedo.
So snow's changing, it's getting polluted.
And also you have vegetation growing higher through the snow.
So the albedo effect, the way the Arctic is cooling,
the planet through albedo is being reduced.
That means that the world's climate will get warmer.
You've also heard in the permafrost chapter and the land atmosphere chapter
that over historical times, over thousands of years the Arctic has accumulated
the green house gas carbon atmosphere dioxide out of the atmosphere and
stored it safely in soils much within permafrost.
But as that permafrost thaws and as the soil microbes get more active in a warmer
soil, then we're worried about how much of that carbon goes back as a greenhouse gas.
Again to lead to warming that potentially could affect the climate of planet Earth.
In addition, the Arctic has redistributed the Earth's heat by cooling the tropics
and warming western Europe, and we saw that before.
The system broke down in the path, in the historic path about 11,500 years ago.
And that resulted in a period called the under period where there was a very rapid
cooling fora short period.
We don't think that it's going to happen now but the weakening
of the current could moderate the rate of warming in western Europe and Scandinavia.
So there could already be in effect which is moderating
the degree of warming we would otherwise see.
Importantly, the Arctic contributes to sea level rise.
It does this through melt water from ice on land from the Greenland Ice Sheet for
example, from the glaciers on land that flow into sea.
And it also does it from the thermal expansion of water that,
as the water gets warmer because of these positive feedbacks, in the Arctic and
the water expands.
And that mean sea level rise goes up.
The frightening statistics is about 140 million people
will suffer from coastal flooding with a 44 centimeter rise in sea level.
And we expect that to happen in about the next 50 years.
Some people can mitigate against that, and build new structures to keep the sea out.
And some people can move, relocate, which has an implication for other people.
But many people will not be able to respond as here.
Another worrying challenge and something politically incorrect
to talk about in a way is the possible development of conflict.
And these conflicts could arrive over geopolitical ambitions.
And also unequal distribution of resources such as water in the future.
This is just a reminder in 2007, Russia put a flag underneath the North Pole.
Since 2007,
various nations are now formerly putting claim to own the North Pole.
And there is small disputes between Canada and the US about the Northwest Passage and
the shipping rights there, between Canada and Denmark about a rock.
Who owns the rock because the oil resources around it go with
whoever owns the rock.
These are all minor disputes at the moment but
who knows what will happen in the future.
Now, I've talked about the bad news, the doom and gloom.
But in addition to the bad news, there will also be opportunities too.
And perhaps one of the greatest opportunities is new and
cheaper shipping routes between Europe and Asia.
And this will have major implications on the infrastructure throughout
the Siberian North and throughout the Northwest Passage.
And already new rail links are being developed here in Russia.
And you can see from the little graphic, I'm sorry it's very small.
But if the traditional route from Europe to Japan goes through Suez Canal,
Mediterranean Suez Canal, past India, past Singapore.
The new route, the Northern Sea route is only 40% of that
journey with massive savings in economy.
But, the problem is although there will be opportunities and
there will be challenges, they're not shared equally by the world's population.
And just to be provocative and just give an example of how this could fall out,
we can look at challenges, we can look at opportunities, we can look at Arctic
residents, we can look at the global community and then see what happens.
Challenges to the Arctic residents, insecure travel routes,
diminishing traditional food sources, and we can go on.
The Global Community?
Well the biggest single one has the be the sea level rise and the amplified warming
and the climate migrants, the massive climate migrants that will produce.
If we now look to opportunities, well, in the global community,
must be access to new resources and new shipping routes.
And the example from the resources is the oil.
I think it's 25% of all remaining fossil fuel reserves are in the Arctic and
they're becoming more accessible.
If we look at the opportunities for the Arctic residents, well,
this Syberian trifle is scratching the head.
He doesn't really know.
Of course, there will be short-term increases in economy, but are they really
going to improve the long-term situation for the Arctic residents?
If we put labels onto this,
then maybe the Arctic residents are losers, who will be the winners?
Well it has to be the big multinational industry.
So the division between the haves and the have nots that we already
have now are going to even worse as we go into to the future,
unless some new paradigm can be operated.
This is a very complex story, but you're trying put this together as simple way,
which is almost impossible.
We can get some major conclusions out of the course.
One is the abiotic changes.
That's changes in the physical environment like climate, glaciers,
permafrost, hydrology.
They're all dramatic and
they're predictable because they're based on physical principles.
If we look at the biological changes, biomass, the amount of vegetation cover,
the species change, biodiversity.
They vary from dramatic, or
even what we wouldn't expect, like decreases rather than increases.
So they vary from minor to dramatic.
And very often, although we're good at looking at the long-term trends, we get
surprised by the local factors that are important to people who live in the Arctic
and the short term events that often override the long term climate changes.
And the examples are tundra fire or winter warming events.
These local factors and events are very difficult to predict, and
very much harder to work with than the long term trends.
Everyone will be affected in some way.
And you've seen that the feedback from the Arctic to the planet Earth and
its control or contribution to sea level rise
will mean that everyone will be effected in some way.
What is important is to do what we're doing now, and that is communicating.
And not to just let the future happen, but actually plan for
a peaceful and safe future.
>> Why is predicting the future Arctic environment particularly difficult?
A, we do not understand long term trends.
B, local factors often override the long term trends not difficult to predict.
C, events override long term trends and are difficult to predict.
D, computer models are poor.
E, there are too few methods of predicting the future.
