Presentation to the IUCN, Brussels, June 2019
Good morning! My name is Andrea Sparrow. I represent The Arctic Arts Project. We are a group of visual communicators dedicated to documenting the science of climate change in the Arctic and around the planet.
In April of this year, climatologist Jason Box released a meta-study spanning 47 years of data, in 9 key aspects of the Arctic system, that have been altered by climate change. Many of the changes documented in the study were particularly visible in the spring, so our group left in May to document what is happening there.
We spent two weeks in western Greenland, taking photographs and video in the areas around Illulissat, Disko Bay, on Disko Island, around Qeqertarsuaq, and over the ice sheet to the north of Illulissat. What we experienced was one of the warmest springs on record for the region. Temperatures are usually around 0 degrees celcius in May. In June the average temperature is 5.6 degrees. We were wearing light jackets as the temperature was near 10 degrees most days and up to 16 on two days of our time there. People were wearing shorts and sundresses when the norm would be parkas and boots. Spring came four weeks early this year and these temperatures had precisely the affect documented in the Box study.
In our explorations of the tundra areas, we found no snow remaining where normally there would still be light coverage and low temperatures, keeping the plants dormant. Instead, the tundra surface was covered in water filled bogs. Plants were coming to life, many of them blooming already. There were almost no insects yet. The effect of this is multifold. The longer growing season increases the biomass of plants in areas where there is water. There is an increase in CO2 uptake with this, however, the degradation of these plants in autumn increases the CO2 output and results in an increase in CO2 release overall. The bogs allow ancient carbon dioxide and methane to bubble to the surface, which we were able to see in many areas. The unusual warmth also has the result of a shorter bloom cycle and a mismatch between the plant’s need for pollination and the arrival of the insects that do this work. Long term, this will result in far fewer species of plants in the tundra and a limited diet for the animals, like caribou and muskoxen, that depend on them for food. This is happening in many areas of the Arctic.
The next observation we made was that the sea ice was vastly reduced from its’ normal coverage in the area. Weeks ahead of the usual time, the fishermen were out in boats, laying long lines to catch halibut. The fishermen have observed that the halibut have grown smaller in recent years. This is likely due to overfishing. Rather than a small number of fish being caught in the springtime, thousands of tons are pulled from the water as the long line fishing from boats is a far more effective way to catch fish than through the ice. The more time that the sea is free of ice, the more fish are caught here. At least until overfishing reduces the available catch.
The Greenlandic fishermen we talked to were happy about this. They make more money to buy things like bigger boats, snowmobiles and televisions. They can buy food in the winter and so are less concerned with the loss of caribou and muskoxen than people in more remote parts of the Arctic who depend on these animals for food all winter.
On Disko island, the story is somewhat different. The halibut population has declined there. But the men are catching far more cod. Cod have moved north as the waters have warmed. This is a temporary bounty as the waters can become too warm for the fish eggs to incubate properly, meaning that the cod population is possibly moving north rather than simply expanding their territory northward. The early melt of the sea ice also changes whale migration patterns by allowing them to migrate north earlier in the ice-free ocean.
Morten Rasch, head of the Arctic Research Station on Disko Island, speaks of a time when people would travel by dog sled all winter to the mainland of Greenland for supplies. The sea ice has been too thin and unpredictable to do so for two decades. The average temperature in the cold season is up 3.1 degrees celcius. The Arctic is warming much more than the rest of the planet due to Polar Amplification, a phenomenon where the poles are subject to a greater rise in temperature than the rest of the planet. Because it is so warm, the ice is not as thick and multi year ice in the very north is disappearing, leaving the sea covered with only a thinner, darker layer of first year ice. Supplies must be brought in by helicopter all winter to Disko Island, until the ice melts sufficiently that travel by boat is possible. We watched the last of the sea ice disappear in Disko Bay as the temperature skyrocketed during our stay.
The last area we documented was the great ice sheet on the Western side. We are all aware of the melting of the ice sheet, but it is another thing to see it happening. We flew north from illulissat to Eqi Glacier. Our last visit to Eqi, 20 months before, had us curious about how the glacier had changed in this time. The glacier has not receded noticeably, but it has deflated markedly, leaving much more rock exposed along the cliffs that flank it. As we flew over Eqi and up to the ice sheet, there were tracks and pools of deep blue water all over the surface of the glacier. The ice sheet, which should still be white, was similarly traced with blue. Every crack and crevice held a river. Every depression, a lake. It is beautiful and really frightening to see so much blue water up there. Blue absorbs much more of the sun’s radiation which then causes more melt with that warmth. Albedo refers to a surface’s ability to reflect solar radiation. When a surface is no longer white, the lower albedo allows more heat to be absorbed, creating a feedback loop that dramatically increases the amount of water running from the ice sheet and into the oceans. Scientists are beginning to understand how this freshwater runoff affects ocean currents and therefore winds and weather, all over the planet.
The Arctic is the key that unlocks our way of life here on earth. If we allow this vulnerable system to fail, we set forth a cascade of changes everywhere.
What we have now are annual average temperatures in the Arctic that are 2.7 degrees celcius higher than 40 years ago. The glaciers and ice sheet are melting rapidly into the ocean. Permafrost is thawing, releasing methane and carbon dioxide from ancient reserves. Sea ice is disappearing, and ecosystems are changing rapidly. The indigenous population in this region is experiencing a boom where they fish and a bust where they hunt.
It could all be seen as simply depressing, making us want to turn away from what the Arctic is telling us. But I see this message as a gift. In the Arctic, we are able to see firsthand how deeply a place can be altered by a warmer climate. The Arctic is a sentinel telling us to move quickly to change the way we function on this planet, to change the way we see this planet. It is not a thing with endless resources for us to squander. It is a living system made up of countless, smaller, living systems, working together to create this beautiful, habitable place.
I know all of you are and have been working to protect the natural world. We all know that we can change the way humanity does the work of living here. We can find a balance between our desire for comfort and convenience and our recognition that we must care for this fragile planet of ours. If we don’t, it will cease to provide for the number of people we have created. The chaos that would ensue as our habitat shrinks is almost unimaginable and will affect everyone, everywhere.
The reason I am here is to show you what is happening in western Greenland now. I am giving you a glimpse into the changed world and I am asking you to continue the hard work of supporting our natural systems. I am also asking you to work harder. We simply don’t have time to make slow changes to our way of life. If the Arctic hits a tipping point, there will be nothing we can do but adapt to a new world. The effects will cascade through the systems of life we know and change them to something we don’t know. And it will happen quickly. The climate scientists I’ve spoken to are desperate for the leaders of the world to understand this. There isn’t time for them to study every minute aspect of the natural world, not that they haven’t tried. They can’t tell you exactly how or when the world will change, but they can tell you that they are seeing changes now that are more dramatic and faster than they expected. They are seeing changes they didn’t expect at all.
There is not one solution here, but many. And there is great opportunity in a rapid shift away from unsustainable habits. We have alternatives that simply must be made mandatory now. We have to stop burning fossil fuels. We have to stop making and discarding plastics with abandon. We need vast development of renewable energy, everywhere. Alternatives to flying need to be created, while airplanes need to be built and run in new ways. The cost to the planet of generating CO2 has to be incorporated into the enterprises that create it. We need to start paying the debt we have been living on. Carbon capture and sequestration are necessary technologies. We need to develop and implement them on a massive scale if we are to limit warming to 1.5 degrees. There are thousands of ways we can change how things are done.
The United States is one of the worst offenders in the world. We are a developed nation with the knowledge and financial stability to function differently. We consume resources like there is no tomorrow, no obligation to future generations. But there are also many people like me. I have a child. I want a world where there is peace and balance for her. I understand what needs to be done and I work tirelessly to document what is happening and educate those who doubt it. There is will building in the US and there is will everywhere else on the planet. It is up to leaders like you to create the parameters of the new human existence. In the words of Ed Millband “The requirement now is for dramatic changes to how we live, how we move, what we eat and how we use our land.”
The lesson is right in front of us, in the form of a rapidly changing Arctic. We have the foresight this gift offers. Now, we must simply proceed down the right path.