Martin Sommerkorn on RACER, WWF’s new tool to identify ecosystem resilience in the Arctic.
James Snider of WWF discusses his research on Arctic resilience:
Alexander Shestakov, director of the WWF Global Arctic Programme, speaks on the risks of Arctic shipping:
The first modern International Polar Year (IPY) in 2007-2008 focused global attention on scientific research at both poles. Starting from the efforts of a small number of enthusiasts and agencies, and by building on existing multinational collaborations and science programs, IPY has developed into a world-wide, community-based effort.
This week, thousands of researchers, community members and governmental officials are meeting in Montreal to turn the knowledge we’ve gained since then into action.
Appropriately, the Polar Research Board (PRB) is taking a look back at the lessons and legacies of that pivotal first year with a new report:
Download “Lessons and Legacies of the International Polar Year“
Join a webinar on the report
May 2 at 1:00 PM EDT
A presentation and discussion with co-chairs Bob Bindschadler and Julie Brigham-Grette
Register here or contact Lauren Brown for more information.
The Polar Research Board is a unit of the National Academies dedicated to enhancing understanding of the Arctic, Antarctic, and high-latitude regions and providing guidance to Congress, federal agencies, and the nation on cold region issues.
As I write this I’m sitting in the WWF booth here at the International Polar Year Conference in Montreal, Canada.
It’s hard to actually get a break to write this in between the stream of people visiting the booth – with about 3,000 people registered, there’s always someone passing by. We’re using the booth to do what the conference is supposed to be about, moving knowledge into action – in our case the knowledge we’re pushing out comes from our offices around the Arctic. We have reports from Russia on using remote sensing to count walrus populations, field reports from Alaska, and a report we’re highlighting at this conference, the final version of the handbook on our work to create a framework for assessing resilience in the Arctic.
The people who come to the booth to pick up the materials range from some Argentinian students interested in our work in the Antarctic (we found them Spanish language materials thanks to our colleagues from the Antarctic and Southern Oceans Initiative) to an Inuit leader from Nunavik (Northern Quebec) who wanted to know how the money we raised jointly with Coca-Cola is benefiting northern conservation. But what really struck me was the number of teachers who stopped by our booth – “We love you guys,” they tell us “your materials are really useful in the classroom.”
While we appreciate the opportunity to help shape young minds, we’re here to try to shape not-so-young minds too. We’re keenly aware that the rate of change in the Arctic, change confirmed by research conducted under the International Polar Year, is such that we don’t have the luxury of waiting until the kids grow up to make the right decisions for the Arctic. That’s why we’re going beyond the booth, presenting in a variety of sessions over the course of the week to talk about the urgency of translating research into action on climate change, on promoting resilience, and on ensuring that we have adequate safeguards for an Arctic that requires careful stewardship.
© WWF Russia / Tatiana Minenko
Visit the WWF narwhal tracker
February 2012
These 4 narwhals are not moving much now. We are approaching March, which in most parts of the Arctic is the month of maximum sea-ice cover. These narwhal are in the area thought to be most regularly used in winter by this species, between SE Baffin Island and Greenland. This distribution is influenced by availability of Greenland Halibut in particular, but probably some other prey species such as squid, which tend to concentrate in areas where nutrients allow benthic organisms to flourish, especially around the edges of the deep centre and adjacent troughs of Baffin Bay.
January 2012
Since December it looks like two of the 7 radios are no longer transmitting, or may simply have become detached from the narwhal’s dorsal ridge. However, the five remaining whales (all females and all about 13 ft in length, so adults) are all wintering between Qikiqtarjuaq in SE Baffin Island and Disko Bay (W Greenland), in the central basin and deep trench of S Baffin Bay and N Davis Strait – waters up to 2-3,000 m deep!
Past research has found that some wintering narwhal in this area are diving to the seabed in these amazing depths and probably feeding mainly on Greenland Halibut. Although the satellite sea-ice coverage map shows’ 9+ tenths’ or essentially complete ice cover, clearly there are enough leads/cracks between ice sheets and the narwhals are able to detect and rely on these for breathing.
Surface air temperatures and ice cover appear to be about normal now in this region, so we assume that these narwhals are pretty content doing what they have evolved so highly to do at this season – pack on energy and stay away from predatory killer whales!
Visit the WWF narwhal tracker
November 2011
It’s great to see that all of the 7 custom designed narwhal satellite radio tags are performing well. This brings us weekly updated information about key areas used in Baffin Bay and northern Davis Strait. With Canadian Arctic temperatures having plummeted to 20-30C below zero this past week, sea-ice formation is in full swing, which is good news for narwhals basically! If thyere were any pods of killer whales in these areas, we suspect that they have by now moved well south and away from the arctic sea-ice conditions.
October 2011
With the returning annual sea-ice now forming around North Baffin Island, the 7 narwhals have all moved out from the summering inlets ahead of the ice.
Although Tremblay Sound still appears from the detailed ice charts to be mainly open water, the channels around there have heavy ice cover, and so would have possibly blocked the narwhals return to more open water in Baffin Bay. At this point, sea-ice cover in this part of the Arctic is close to the norm from the past 30 years at this date.
As of early October, these high-tech satellite radio tags have been programmed to transmit only every four days, for the duration of winter and spring, to save on battery power and prolong their overall tracking life. (The satellites can of course only pick up the emitted signal when the narwhal is at the surface.)
By Clive Tesar
Academic conferences such as this one are filled with experts. Experts in anthropology, law, sociology, education and several more disciplines. How do we know they’re expert? Because the vast majority have letters after their name that tell us so – there are more doctors here than in your average hospital (though I wouldn’t want these doctors performing surgery on me). But when it comes to telling the world about the Arctic, are these the right sort of experts? Continue reading
By Clive Tesar
Climate change would be called undeniable, if it wasn’t for the fact that so many people do deny it. In southern Alaska, large percentages of republican voters deny that it’s happening, according to a large phone survey conducted by the University of New Hampshire. The survey was presented here at the International Congress of Arctic Social Sciences in Akureyri Iceland. Continue reading
By Clive Tesar
One of the struggles at the heart of discussion of the Arctic is over who has the right be there, and to use arctic resources. Most of the governments that ring the Arctic Ocean are busily working on claims that will extend their rights to the sea bed. The question is, who else has the right to be there once all the claims are adjudicated? The UN convention on the law of the sea doesn’t settle the questions of shipping, or even all the questions about fishing. Continue reading
The WWF Global Arctic Programme’s Head of Communications, Clive Tesar, attended the International Congress of Arctic Social Sciences in Iceland in order to track trends and the latest information about the peoples of the Arctic, as they are so central to WWF’s conservation efforts in this area. While at the conference, he posted a series of blogs – this is the first.
By Clive Tesar
Locals say the snow should have disappeared from many of Iceland’s hills by now, but it has stayed on, disrupting local sheep pasturing patterns. Photo: WWF / Clive Tesar