On Thinning Ice 2002

Published by the Canadian Arctic Resources Committee Volume 27, Number 2, Spring 2002 On Thinning Ice At first glance, you might wonder how global climate change could influence thinking about issues like sovereignty and security. But look deeper, and you will see that impacts of climate change have profound implications for Canadians, ranging from our ability to define and protect our country to how we feed ourselves. The effects of climate change are with us now, and they are particularly apparent in Canada’s Arctic. Changes More than 200 participants filled the government conference centre in Ottawa. in habitat and ice cover are altering natural rhythms, and jeopardizing the economy and culture of northern • Ice conditions throughout the Arctic have already begun peoples. The appearance of unfamiliar species has to disrupt hunting and may well have implications for magnified the fears of local people that the ecological the survival of some species. balance of the Arctic is under assault. The projected opening of the Northwest Passage brings another set • Canada has neither the policy nor the resources required of challenges, with the possibility that other nations will to defend and administer a northern border accessible ignore Canada’s claims to sovereignty over waters between to international shipping. the Arctic islands. • Without the ability to protect an accessible northern border, our claim to Arctic sovereignty is in jeopardy. Responding to increasing concern from northerners about the dramatic changes in Arctic ice conditions, • Even full implementation of the Kyoto Protocol will only CARC, together with the Canadian Polar Commission slow the rate of these impacts; they cannot be stopped. and the Centre for Military and Strategic Studies, called • Although impacts of climate change are greatest in the together northern leaders, scientists, academics, policy Polar Regions, northerners often feel powerless to influ- makers and public servants for a conference. The “On ence the international debate that is so closely controlled Thinning Ice” conference took place in Ottawa in by economic interests. January 2002. It examined a broad range of issues to One clear and consistent theme emerged from the two days help shape the development of Canadian policy relative of presentations and panel discussions: the threat of climate to the north and to climate change. change is real and we are largely unprepared to meet it. This edition of Northern Perspectives is devoted entirely CARC is continuing the work of publicising the results of to summarizing the conference proceedings. Some high- the conference, so that Canadians will be aware of the lights of the presentations you will read inside include: threats to our northern heartland. We are also moving for- ward with plans to synthesise the information presented • Ice thickness is declining at between 4% and 10% per at the conference, to formulate policy options that we hope decade along the Northwest Passage. At this rate, the will help address the challenges of thinning ice. ឣ Passage will become navigable for much of the year within the next three decades. Karen Wristen is Executive Director of CARC. Climate Change—the Difference This Time Critics of the science behind the links between green- • This is the first time human activity is a significant, and house gases and climate change are fond of pointing out even dominant, factor in controlling climate change. the earth’s previous climatic variations. There were ice • The rate of change is unprecedented for at least 10,000 ages and warming trends before, both historical and years, showing a rapid rise beginning about 100 years prehistoric. Grapes once flourished in England, and ice ago, and an even sharper upturn in the past few years. sheets once covered most of Canada. The current round of climate change, they say, is just another of those climatic • The profound impact of humans on the global ecosystem. blips to which the planet is predisposed. “We are now dealing with many issues besides climate Doctor Donald Lemmen of Natural Resources Canada change,” he explains. “Ecosystems around the globe is not convinced by those arguments. Having studied are under stress from a number of factors. Climate northern hemisphere climate records, he says this current change may, in some cases, be the straw that breaks the round of change is different for 3 reasons: camel’s back.” The Ice Evidence More than anything else, a frozen ocean defines the the minimum amount of ice over that period of time has Arctic, according to John Falkingham of the Canadian been decreasing by about 8-9%/decade. So that we have Ice Service. If this is true, then the definition of the Arctic observed a very significant decrease in Canadian Arctic ice.” is changing, because the extent of the frozen ocean is While it is evident that the sea ice is decreasing, Falkingham also changing. does not believe we will ever see a time when it disappears The Canadian Ice Service is a branch of Enivironment completely. “The Canadian Arctic is never going to become Canada. Its job is to monitor ice and maintain awareness ice-free all year round,” he says. “At least not in any fore- of Canada’s ice environment. Falkingham says the figures seeable future that we can look at. It gets dark and it gets show conclusively that the amounts of ice in the Arctic are cold in the Arctic in the winter time, so there will always decreasing. He points to two studies, one from 19981 and be at least winter time coverage.” 2 one from 1999 . One found that the amount of sea ice Apart from the trends in actual ice extent, Falkingham in the northern hemisphere had decreased by about 3% cites other evidence that the Arctic is becoming more ice- per decade over the past 2 decades. The second study free. Over the past 30 years, he says the shipping season showed that ice thickness in the Arctic Ocean has decreased for the Hudson Bay port of Churchill has increased by by 40%, a finding that Falkingham calls, “shocking to the 2 weeks. Tieing all of the evidence together—the indications scientific community.” of sea ice change, the direct evidence of temperature Falkingham cautions against taking the ice coverage from increases, and the science of global climate change— year to year as an indication of change. He says in Hudson is still a work in progress according to Falkingham. Bay for instance, the ice coverage changed by 300% between He says it is a field that demands more study. 1992 and 1993. What’s important are trends, and the trends “While there’s no proof of climate change impacts on sea observed by the Ice Service in the Canadian Arctic show ice in the Canadian Arctic, there’s a growing body of cir- that in Hudson Bay, the ice coverage has diminished by cumstantial evidence that during this century we will see 10% over each of the past three decades. Falkingham says significantly reduced amounts of ice. But the bottom line lower numbers, but similar trends have been observed in is, with this growing body of circumstantial evidence, com- the eastern and western Canadian Arctic regions. bined with the significant impacts and the vulnerability “Bottom line, across the area of the Northwest Passage we of the Arctic, we need to spend more time, more effort, can say that over the last 30 years, the amount of ice in the more money, more resources, on monitoring and study- summer time has been decreasing by 4-6% per decade. And ing what’s happening in our own back yard in Canada.” ឣ 1 C. Parkinson et al 1998. 2 D. Rothrock 1999. 2 Dr Lemmen hedges no bets when talking about are manifest in changes in sea ice, permafrost, coastal what is causing this accelerated climate change. He erosion, glaciers, and biological ecosystems.” says what’s driving it is the atmospheric concentration of greenhouses gases. Dr. Lemmen further outlines some possible effects of climate change in Canada’s north. Caribou may find food And that is why he says mitigation, through reduction of harder to come by, due to changed snow depths and ice greenhouse gas emissions, is an important first step in layers covering their winter forage; increased forest fires addressing climate change. “We must mitigate,” says Dr. and incursions of warm-weather pests could devastate Lemman. “We must do all we can to reduce the rate of boreal forests; communities that rely on ice roads to haul climate change. We can not prevent climate change, we in essential supplies may be stranded. can not stop climate change.” Mitigation is part of the answer to avoiding catastrophe, The United Nations-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel according to Dr. Lemmen, but the second part of the on Climate Change estimates that temperatures will answer is adaptation. He cites the example of an ice core increase by between 1.4 to 5.8°C over the period 1990 dam at a northern mining site. Rather than design the to 2100. dam based on current temperatures, engineers used warming projections to ensure that the dam will still hold under And much of that change, according to the Panel, will conditions of future warming. be felt first and hardest in the north. “Polar regions are expected to experience amongst the largest, most rapid Dr. Lemmen’s parting message is that whatever strategies climate changes of any region on earth, and will cause are employed to deal with it, climate change should not major physical ecological, sociological and economic be denied, especially by northerners. “Climate change is impacts. Changes in climate that have already taken place real,” he says, “it’s being felt in the north today.” ឣ What We Don’t Know— the Challenges of Integrating Knowledge Human activities are equal to or greater than forces of nature in a local area.

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