The Arctic This Week Take Five: Week of July 30, 2018
A Heat Wave Sweeps the Arctic
This week the Norwegian city of Banak, located above the Arctic Circle, saw the temperature reach 32 degrees Celsius (90F). The warm season in Banak has historically lasted 3 months with the warmest day (usually July 23) being 16 degrees Celsius (61F). That’s a significant difference from this year’s high. The severe weather is expected to continue in the North as the warm season drags on. The expectation now is that Europe’s all-time heat record of 48 degrees Celsius (118.4F) can be broken sometime in the coming weeks. Scientists claim that these heatwaves are more extreme as a result of the last 40 years of climate warming (Mashable).
Take 1: The effect of these intense heat waves is seen all over the world with wildfires raging across Europe and in the U.S. While it remains difficult to say that climate change is the direct cause of these heat waves, it does play a role in how intense they have become. A study published in the Journal of Climate and Weather Extremes showed that spiking greenhouse levels contributed to melting sea ice and thus increased warming. As stated in the study “Ice loss itself can cause additional warming near the surface and be responsible for most of the Arctic amplification (a phenomenon used to characterize the strong Arctic warming compared to lower latitudes).” This year’s summer temperatures in the Arctic might be the new norm and countries that have not experienced this type of heat before must take steps to prepare for its consequences in the future (Inside Climate News, Journal of Climate and Weather Extremes).
The Shot Heard Around the World
All major newspapers are covering a story about how a polar bear was shot dead on the northernmost island of the Svalbard archipelago, a region located between mainland Norway and the North Pole. The incident occurred on July 28 when tourists from the cruise ship Ms Bremen landed on the island, and two polar bear guards stepped on land. The polar bear was shot after one of the guards was attacked and injured on his head. The man is now in Longyearbyen on Spitsbergen Island undergoing medical treatment and is reportedly not in a life-threatening condition (BBC News, The Guardian, The New York Times).
Take 2: The polar bear incident has sparked a lot of criticism of Arctic wildlife tourism. People have lashed out at the tourists for travelling to a region with polar bears, and then killing the animals if they became dangerous or got too close. This criticism is fair. The area is in fact the Polar Bear’s natural environment, and not a zoo. The problem doesn’t only lie in this one incident. Arctic tourism has risen sharply in the last few years. In Longyearbyen alone, 18 cruise ships are scheduled to be docking within the next week. While this amount of tourism is good for a country’s wallet, it is also harmful to the Arctic environment as it puts stress on the land and ecosystems. The guards in this case were caught by surprise with one being seriously hurt. They did the right thing to save a human life. In the future it is absolutely necessary that tourism is limited, but of course not prohibited. Measures need to be put in place for a sustainable tourism industry that does not put humans and wildlife in positions where they are in danger.
Wolf Spider Paradise
On July 23, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published the results of a new Arctic study. Researchers from Washington University in St. Louis studied wolf spiders, a dominant tundra predator, in Alaska’s North Slope over a period of two summers. In order to study how warming will affect wolf spiders in the Arctic, its prey, its prey’s food, and the food’s food, the scientists first removed all the wolf spiders from the area at the beginning of each summer. They then divided the area into plots and filled them with spiders at low, normal or high densities. After, half of the plots received a warming treatment, increasing the average temperature by one to two degrees Celsius. The results confirmed the findings from a 2009 study that concluded that a warming Arctic could make wolf spiders larger, more abundant, and more active. It was also expected that more wolf spiders in warmer plots would stalk more springtail, a small insect that usually is on the top of any wolf spider’s dietary list. However, the study showed that spiders in the warm, densely-populated plots mostly left the springtails alone, allowing them to thrive (Nunatsiaq News, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences).
Take 3: This is one of those happy stories of how climate change can actually be good! You may wonder why because bigger Arctic spiders do not sound great at all. Okay, here is the thing… Yes, climate change means bigger, more active and more abundant wolf spiders, but it also means that the spiders leave the springtails alone. Springtails eat fungi, which in turn feed on decomposing plants and animals, a process that releases greenhouse gases to the air. More springtails lead to fewer fungi, which again lead to fewer greenhouse gases. Spiders will definitely not save us from climate change, but they can alleviate some of the effects of warming on carbon losses from the tundra.
The Future Arctic Battle
On July 30, the Army Times discussed a rising concern among U.S. government and military leaders – Russia’s growing military and scientific presence in the Arctic region. Russia has stationed new paratrooper, counterterrorism, and cyber warfare forces while also investing in new weapon systems, equipment, and bases. It has also added 16 deep-water ports, more than 40 icebreakers, and improved research related capabilities. On the other hand, the U.S. and its allies lag behind in large-scale unit training and capacity in fighting in an Arctic environment. Most U.S. military training focuses on small unit tactics and cold weather training, which Arctic military experts claim is not the same as training for an Arctic fight. U.S. leaders are now examining ways to increase training and capabilities to prepare units for Arctic battles (Army Times, USNI News).
Take 4: As polar ice melts, the U.S. government has begun to recognize that the region is opening up and increasing in competition for shipping, natural resources, and potential land grabs. The U.S. Army Mountain Warfare School in Fort Drum and the Northern Warfare Training Center in Alaska have seen increased training from units, but they are only designed to train small units and leadership. The Army lacks large-scale staff exercises that train brigades and their staffs on how Arctic operations are conducted. Until the U.S. invests more in this type of training and in new equipment it will continue to lag behind in Russia’s arctic capabilities. By the time the U.S gets serious about the Arctic it will find a Russia and China well entrenched in the area.
Research that is High in The Clouds
On July 31, a team of forty researchers from across the world set sail for the Arctic Ocean on a Swedish-American research expedition conducted by the Swedish Polar Research Secretariat and the United States’ National Science Foundation. The goal of the study is to determine how polar changes may impact temperatures globally by altering cloud formation. The expedition is set to last till the end of September, and includes the Swedish icebreaker, Oden. For one month, the ship will be moored to a moving ice floe. As the researchers drift with the ice, they will collect vital measurements from the air, sea and ice. The samples will help us better understand the role of the clouds in the Arctic climate systems, and how the melting of the ice affects cloud formation, and thus impacts global weather (Swedish Polar Research Secretariat).
Take 5: It can often be hard to explain to people how climate effects in the Arctic will have global implications. Yet, as the study aims to show, clouds play a vital role in the regulation of the Earth’s temperature, and how their formation over the Arctic not only affects the immediate area but have larger implications. Clouds regulate the amount of solar radiation that comes into the Earth, while at the same time impacting the energy flow along the Earth’s surface. As ice melts in the Arctic the scientists believe that the released particles form more clouds, in turn producing an earlier freezing period and having other effects on the Earth’s weather. More studies like this are needed to show the complete effects of increased cloud formations on not just the Arctic but also other parts of the world. As their research wraps up in September it will be interesting to see what the results end up being.