Download Breakout Group 3 - Arctic Research Consortium of the United States

Breakout Group 3
Science/Policy/Human Implications of Fasterthan- Forecast Changes
Starting Point
• Results of the IPCC report combined with 2007 ice loss
event give us confidence on arctic climate change.
• The convergence of rapid climate change events, socioeconomic change and political change has come to create a
kind of perfect storm, especially for arctic peoples.
• Change is so rapid - people really need to know what the
potential alternate ecosystem states might look like.
• We have to deal with the problem now on multiple levels –
starting with the science that informs decision making and
conducting the research on the components of the system
which immediately impact people and with which people
interact.
Key Aspects
of the General Questions
• Arctic ecosystems are going to be replaced by subarctic
ecosystem but what does that mean specifically with
respect to spatial distribution and the temporal and
seasonal variability…
• Can we predict the cumulative effects of ecosystem change
and threshold events and the ensuing feedbacks?
Near-term Science Activities
• Synthesis of existing ecological and human
dimensions information.
• Modeling in order to tease out out a couple of
possible scenarios given the state of our
knowledge today.
• Identification what other data sets are needed to
improve our understanding of potential changes
and outcomes within ecosystems and human
systems (i.e..,subsistence, tourism, resource
extraction, fisheries).
• Identification of information gaps.
Long-term Science Activities
• Collecting observations that are needed to assist us in
refining and validating scenarios.
• Moving outside the arctic for relevant data.
• Modeling.
• Activities to identify areas that are more vulnerable to
rapid change and the barriers to resilience and adaptation.
Clearly this involves partnerships in research with local
people
• Meetings to plan for activities and develop integration and
modeling.
Immediate Products
• Synthesis paper of existing ecosystem data including the
paleorecords and more recent analogues that are useful for
ecosystem reconstruction (beyond sediment cores and
temperature etc. reconstructions).
• Building various scenarios and working them through.
• Preliminary projections for how the arctic might function in
the immediate and distant future for marine and terrestrial
ecosystem – in order inform management, policy, improve
resilience etc.
Pacific Cod Fork Lengths (mm) ca. 586 14C yrs BP,
Shelikof Strait Gulf of Alaska
Fork Length (mm)
900
800
700
600
500
400
300
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
R2 = 0.0196
Pacific Cod
25
d13C and d15N Values
20
d15N
15
10
d13C
y = -9E-06x + 16.749
R2 = 0.0005
Linear (d13C )
Linear (d15N)
5
0
-5 0
-10
-15
2000
4000
6000
8000
y = -0.0007x - 13.868
R2 = 0.4078
-20
-25
Calibrated Radiocarbon Years BP 2 Sigma
Gulf of Alaska - Proportion of Pacfic Cod as Com pared to all
Species ca 6000-4000 14C yrs BP
Gulf of Alaska - Proportion of Pacific Cod as Com pared to all
Species ca. 2000-586 14C yrs BP
30%
32%
Pacific Cod
Pacific Cod
Walleye Pollock
0%
70%
Walleye Pollock
Other Fish
Other Fish
0%
68%