Session Organizers
Maribeth S. Murray, HARC Core Office, Center for Global Change, and Department of Anthropology, University of Alaska Fairbanks
Bruce Forbes, Arctic Centre, University of Lapland, Rovaniemi, Finland
Session Description
Climate change is usually described as a driver of impacts in relation to human activities. Human activity combines with climate change and other drivers such as economics and technology to amplify or attenuate impacts in the Arctic as human dimensions feed back and interact with the climate system. Research and analyses show that human activities are having larger influences, these influences are likely to increase over time, and the potential impact on human security (economic, political, food, and other), will be substantial.
Environmental changes in the Arctic are ongoing and are impacting northern people now, with implications for future global impacts. The Arctic is a bellwether for change as impacts and feedbacks there are more immediate and perhaps more dramatic than they are in other places. Cumulative impact studies as well as projections for future development suggest that preventing or managing such change will require global action. Paying particular attention to human dimensions, the papers in this session draw on examples from the Arctic and from elsewhere to explore the links among Arctic system change and global system change, and in particular the ways in which the changes now observed in the Arctic foreshadow a world in transition.
Contributed Papers
Effects of petroleum development on reindeer herding in the Yamal-Nenets and Nenets Autonomous Okrugs (YNAO and NAO), Russia
Bruce Forbes, Arctic Centre, University of Lapland, Rovaniemi
Human Security in the Arctic
Gunhild Hoogensen, Department of Political Science, University of Tromso
Changes in the Forest Fire Regime in Interior Alaska: an Example of Human-Climate Interactions
Henry Huntington, Hunting Consulting, Eagle River, Alaska
Mark Olson, University of Alaska Fairbanks
David Natcher, Memorial University of Newfoundland
Terry Chapin, University of Alaska Fairbanks
The Impacts of a Changing Climate on Humans and their Freshwater Resources in the Arctic
Daniel M. White, Water and Environmental Research Center, University of Alaska Fairbanks
Lilian Alessa, University of Alaska Anchorage
Larry Hinzman, University of Alaska Fairbanks
Peter Schweitzer, University of Alaska Fairbanks
Andrew Kliskey, University of Alaska Anchorage
Erin Strang, University of Alaska Fairbanks
How Resilient are Social-Ecological Systems of the Arctic to Global Change?
Gary Kofinas, Natural Resource Management, University of Alaska Fairbanks
Matt Berman, University of Alaska Anchorage
Brad Griffith, University of Alaska Fairbanks
Gennady Belchanski, Russian Academy of Science
David Douglas, US Geological Survey
Bruce Forbes, University of Lapland
Konstantin Klokov, St Petersburg State University
Leonid Kolpashikov, Extreme North Agricultural Research Institute
Stephanie Martin, University of Alaska Anchorage
Craig Nicolson, University of Massachusetts
Don Russell, Environment Canada
Thunder in December: Inuit Discourse on Extreme Weather Events and Climate Change
Martina Tyrrell, Department of Anthropology, University of Aberdeen
Climate Change, Marine Systems and Community Health in the Gulf of Alaska: Bridging Gaps between the North and South and the Past and Future
Maribeth S. Murray, Department of Anthropology, University of Alaska Fairbanks
S. Craig Gerlach, University of Alaska Fairbanks
Lawrence K. Duffy, University of Alaska Fairbanks
Amy C. Hirons, University of Alaska Fairbanks
Global Issues, Local Concerns: Syntheses of Climate and Human Dimensions Issues in Myvatnssveit, Northern Iceland
Astrid Olgilvie, University of Colorado
Trausti Jonsson, Icelandic Meteorologic Office