How Climate Change Affects Arctic Society

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How Climate Change Affects Arctic Society

• Lessons from Greenland

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A meta-analysis 2 approaches to integrating
empirical HD research

• (A) Retrospective
• Method study observable variations over time
• Goal infer causal processes
• Results multivariate, nonlinear complexity
• Challenges inferring process from data
  quantifying relationships
  
• (B) Prospective
• Method model causal processes
• Goal infer variations over (future) time
• Results ifthen formulations decision tools
• Challenges specification of process
  verification of results

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2 approaches (continued)

• Challenge although logically sequential, the
  two are difficult to formally connect
  
• Even when both occur within one project.

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Lawrence C. HamiltonNorth Atlantic Arc project
NAArcNSF Arctic Social Sciences and ARCSS
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Climate change and society

• Predictions about future impacts should learn
  from the past.
  
• Evidence regarding historical climate impacts
  tends to be ambiguous.
  
• Social factors complicate the interpretation.
• Climatic vs. social causality?
• Interaction between climate and social systems.

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Influences, feedbacks and interactions among
systems
Physical system change
Physical/social interactions affect biological
system
Biological system change
Human activities
Biological changes affect humans
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Three Greenland examples

• Norse Greenland settlements, ca. 9851450 AD.
• Seal hunting to cod fishing transition, ca.
  19201970.
  
• Cod fishing to shrimp fishing transition, ca.
  1970present.
  
• In each case we see interactions between climate
  and human activities.

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Norse Greenland settlements, ca. 9851450 AD

• Norse pastoralists from Iceland settled southern
  Greenland during the Late Medieval Warm Period.
  
• Found uninhabited, virgin landscape established
  herding economy.
  
• Deforestation, overgrazing reduced productivity
  of marginal lands, increased vulnerability to
  climate.
  
• Settlements abandoned as climate worsened in
  14th15th centuries.

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Greenland Ice Sheet climate indicator, 1000
1500 AD
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Three patterns (Amarosi et al.)

• Natural capital depletion virgin woods, fields,
  hunting grounds buffered society from Arctic
  climate.
  
• Synergistic interactions deforestation soil
  erosion increased vulnerability.
  
• Intensification and technological fixes.

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The sealstocod transition,ca. 19201970

• Traditional culture depended heavily on seals.
• Warming trend, marked after 1920, reduced sea ice
  for hunting.
  
• Overkills depleted seal populations.
• Greenlands growing human population faced
  imminent crisis.
  
• Cod along warming SW coast waters became basis
  for new economy.

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Climate, seals, people and cod, 19101937
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Former cod fishing village of Quassimiut, South
Greenland
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The codtoshrimp transition, ca. 1970present

• Cod stocks overfished by international trawler
  fleet in 1950s1970s, then by Greenlanders in
  1980s.
  
• Oceanographic changes curtailed cod reproduction
  and inflow stock collapsed.
  
• Without cod predation, shrimp became more
  abundant and a main pillar of present economy.

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(No Transcript)
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Cod and shrimp catches, smoothed sea
temperatures, 19502000
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A tale of two cities through the codtoshrimp
transition, 19701998
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Offshore shrimp trawler in Nuuk harbor, 2003
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Sisimiut, West Greenland, 2003
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Interaction effects often characterize the human
dimensions of climatic change

• Climate (physical) system changes affect
  biological systems through interactions with
  human resource-using activities.
  
• Biological system changes feed back to alter
  human activities.

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References
NORSE SETTLEMENTS Amorosi, T., P. Buckland, A.
Dugmore, J. H. Ingimundarson and T. H. McGovern.
1997. Raiding the landscape Human impact in
the Scandinavian North Atlantic. Human Ecology
25(3)491518. SEALSTOCOD Mattox, W. G.
1973. Fishing in west Greenland 19101966
The development of a new native industry.
Copenhagen Meddelelser om Grrnland 197(1).
CODTOSHRIMP Hamilton, L. C., P. Lyster an
d O. Otterstad. 2000. Social change, ecology
and climate in 20th century Greenland. Climatic
Change 47(1/2)193211. Hamilton, L. C., B. C.
Brown and R. O. Rasmussen. 2003. West
Greenlands cod-to-shrimp transition Local
dimensions of climatic change. Arctic
56(3)271282.
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THE END