SUB-PROJECT:
Vulnerability and adaptation of South and East Greenland economies to natural variability in the multi-year ice coverage: local responses to ongoing changes
Summary
The present project integrates natural and socioeconomic sciences in describing past, natural variability of multi-year-ice (Storis) and its impact on present and future activities in the coastal communities in South and East Greenland. Both regions, but the south Greenland region in particular, is characterized by a complex composition of activities.
With focus on past, present and future renewable resource exploitation and accessibility the project aims on one hand at assessing the vulnerability of resource accessibility, navigation, tourism, mining and oil exploration activities to the large natural variations characterizing the region in the historic data available, and on the other hand to evaluate the social response to these variations.
The dataset on multiyear ice as well as the recorded data on economic and social response produced within the project will be a valuable scientific contribution to the International Polar Year. And the recording and analysis of the local responses to the changes provides an important contribution to the understanding of how people in the Circumpolar North are responding to the challenges.
Objectives of the project
I. To build a homogeneous digital dataset of past ice conditions back to 1950 for the South and East Greenland area.
II. To describe the characteristics and origin of the natural multi-year ice variability with focus on accessibility conditions.
III. To describe means of adaptation to natural variations and their socio-economic implications in relation to the exploration of renewable resources, i.e. fisheries, hunting, and farming, as well as the implications for other socio-economic activities.
IV. To identify and quantify the vulnerability of new economic activities in relation to the documented natural extremes, as well as to register and record perceptions regarding possible consequences of ongoing and future changes.
Two demanding tasks of data collection are associated with the project:
- Register data analysis combined with field work consisting of questionnaire surveys and interviews with key stakeholders – industry, administrators, organisations, hunters, fishermen etc., as well as with the youth - to obtain a consistent dataset regarding major hunting, fishing and farming activities and their socioeconomic characteristics, as well as their reaction to ongoing and expected changes.
- Localization, quality control and digitalization of historic Greenland ice-charts to form a basis for describing in detail the navigational conditions through time and to secure these data for future research.
Project funding
A regional pilot project focussing only on South Greenland was partly funded by the Danish KVUG-UMTS grants. Funds have been used to prepare and conduct a limited interview and questionnaire survey in South Greenland, track and collect about 9000 paper ice-charts from a variety of locations including national archives and, to establish procedures for digitalization. About 10% of the South Greenland ice-charts will be digitalized and integrated in a GIS database at the end of 2007. Similarly representative samples of questionnaires and interviews, as well a selection of registers and archival data regarding the socio-economic characteristics of the region from 1950 till today have been collected.
Additional funding has been made available, and has opened up the possibility of continued research meeting the objectives and harvest from the initial efforts on a broader geographical and cultural domain. The main project activities are taking place in 2007-2009, and the final report will be available in 2010.
Participants
Project partners include the Danish Meteorological Institute, Centre for Ocean and Ice (DMI), Ice Patrol Narsarsuaq (IPN), Roskilde University, Department of Environmental, Social and Spatial Change (RUC), Greenland Home Rule, Department of Fisheries, Hunting and Agriculture (FHA), and Nordregio – Nordic Centre for Spatial Development, Stockholm, Sweden.
Background
The Greenlandic society has always been strongly affected by changes in the climate conditions. Historically, dramatic changes in the fishery resources have resulted in large structural changes in the fishing fleet with significant socio-economic consequences and also impacts on the settlement structure. Formerly the economy largely depended on a rich cod fishery whereas it during the last decades has almost entirely depended on the Greenland shrimp stock which by 1995 comprised nearly 75 percent of the total export of Greenland. And more recent, changes in fisheries indicate a more diverse resource use, involving Greenland Halibut and Snowcrab as major contributors to the economy, just as there are indications of the returning of a spawning stock of cod to Greenland. But at the same time, research in relation to the socio-economic characteristics of the renewable resource dependent communities clearly show the important role that the informal economy, based on both hunting and fishing, is playing for maintaining the communities.
Today we know that changes in the ocean climate conditions as well as the pressure on the fish stocks by extensive commercial fishing both played a role for these shifts which comprise both a historical example of the vulnerability of the Greenland economic basis to natural climate variability, as well as an ongoing process with marked implications on the renewable resource dependent communities. These changes are well documented in a recent analysis on the socioeconomic changes among full time hunters, farmers and fishermen indicating important changes in economic strategies, and also responsiveness to environmental changes – responses which may have important implications on the future settlement structure. Consequently, in order to be able to see the importance of hunting and fishing for the local communities, and especially to be able to distinguish between communities where the activity may be important, but not decisive for survival, and communities where the hunting and fishing is decisive for the future of the community, indicators on community development processes should focus on both the division between professionals, leisure time activities, and subsistence activities. A key question for a viable activity is the entering of newcomers into the group of professional hunters and fishermen. With the present pace of decline, professional hunters will disappear by 2030, and with a lot of consequences. First of all the disappearance of an important income source and a lifestyle and culture characterizing the coastal communities in Greenland. Another perspective is the disappearance of a stable supply of Greenlandic products to Greenlanders. Even the decline of professional hunters has been partly replaced by a similar increase in leisure time hunting activities does not mean that this process also replaces the production.
In the past years political and economic efforts have been put into new resources, so far in particular in the southern part of Greenland. These are envisaged to lead to a more robust economic basis for the society, an increased educational level and enhanced local employment. Investments span from the tourist industry which to some extent is relying on cruises in the ice filled coastal waters, mining in the ice-free regions and oil exploration on the continental shelf regions. Whereas the fisheries industry has shown its ability to adapt to changes linked to natural climate variability in the past, the less mature tourist, mining and oil (exploration) activities have not yet been faced with such substantial changes in the conditions of operations. At present, Greenland experiences a marked increase in the investments in mining and exploration activities, mining alone have shown a threefold increase from 2004 to 2005 and the investments persist to increase. Also the international interest in the oil potential in the Greenland shelf regions has reached a preliminary maximum suggesting that extensive activities can be foreseen during the next decade or more. The tourist industry still contributes only a minor fraction to the Greenland economy but holds a large potential for growth and is an important combination with the traditional hunting and fishing activities. Thus, it is essential for the long term development of the Greenland economy that these activities are well prepared for natural changes. Common for these new efforts in particular in southern Greenland is that their expansions and economic basis have been aided by the recent decade long period of relatively small extent of multi-year-ice in the region. Since the early 1990s, the ice conditions have allowed relatively easy access to the coast and shelf region. This implies relatively low logistic costs for ore carriers, seismic surveys and ocean based transport in general. The development of the tourist cruise industry has further benefited by the present possibilities of reaching a number of coastal natural attractions on a regular basis, in particular Prins Christians Sund.
Past experiences with mining in Greenland (e.g. Qullissat and Maarmorilik) have shown that local expert societies can be developed within a time-frame of years, but that they are also easily lost due to lack of continuity. Consequently, this is an economic risk all the new economies including tourist and oil exploration activities, will have to consider in relation to large natural climate variations. Hence, it is vital for a robust development to evaluate the sensitivity and prepare the activities in the region to natural changes in the conditions for operation. In particular the growing industry of tourist cruises in the southern Greenland area is potentially fragile to natural variations in the ice conditions. This is based on the fact that the ice season partly coincides with the season of cruise activities which again rely on long term planning. Cruise liners are typically not ice-strengthened implying that even moderate changes in ice-coverage will force the ships to abandon attractive sights like the Prins Christians Sound. In turn, the positive development in the industry may well be reversed for a number of years by natural multi-year-ice variations in the future with potential consequences for local tourist based economies.
In all cases, the response of the population as well as the businesses, industries and organisations and administrative institutions are crucial for the outcome of any reaction to the changes. Previous and present responses are recorded in register data and archives, and it is still possible to interview persons who have been experiencing and involved in activities and decision making during the last 60 years. Such inputs are important in order to understand the dynamics of the interaction between environmental and social changes. Similarly input from persons presently involved can be collected, and added to the analysis. The future response, however, is also very much depending on the perception of the possible impacts of future changes by the younger generation. Consequently, collection of data through questionnaires and interviews from this group is considered crucial in order to get an idea of the future viability of any new initiatives, including the creation of a proper base for cost-benefit analysis of new activities in the coastal communities.
Mapping ice data
Preliminary analysis at the Danish Meteorological Institute and the Ice Patrol in Narsarsuaq of the historic heterogeneous datasets describing the multi-year ice coverage and navigational conditions in the south Greenland region shows that the region is characterized by large inherent decadal scale variability in the multi-year ice-coverage. The recent period since the early 1990s in general represents optimal conditions for navigation with a few exceptions. Moreover, the analysis back to the 1950’s reveals repeated time intervals of up to five years with significantly enhanced ice-coverage. Presumably, difficult or even dangerous navigational conditions prevail during a number of successive summer seasons in these periods however the present state of data is still too heterogeneous to describe the conditions in such detail. Despite that the magnitude and abruptness of these changes may well serve a more serious and immediate thread to the new economies in the area than changes related to global warming, an assessment of the socioeconomic impacts and possibilities for adaptation to such multi-year natural variations has not previously been addressed, likely linked to the lack of data on sea-ice in digital format. In contrast, the impacts of climatic change related to global warming within the next century have received much attention (e.g. the Arctic Climate Assessment Report).
Outcome
The project will deliver a dataset on South and East Greenland multi-year-ice conditions for the scientific community and a final report distributed to relevant companies and governmental organizations. Similarly, a dataset on related renewable and non-renewable resource activities will be produced, as well as an analysis of community response to changes which will be a cornerstone in a cost-benefit analysis of selected communities. In addition the project will publish results in internationally reviewed scientific journals.
International cooperation
The project is internationally coordinated as a component of the IPY endorsed cluster #210 “Global Change - Social Challenges. Processes of socio-economic changes in the Circumpolar North, with focus on gender and inter and intra-generational relations.” In addition, the oceanographic component of this Danish realization of cluster activities are dependent on international collaboration through a number of existing projects outside the cluster. These include the Nordic project “Arctic–Atlantic Exchanges” funded by the Nordic Council and lead by Prof. Svein Østerhus, Norway, and, if funded, the large scale European project “Thermohaline Circulation – at Risk ?” lead by Prof. Detlef Quadfasel, Germany.
Outreach and education
The pilot project has already attracted attention from public medias, and project cooperation is established with recognized Danish and US science programs, TV-and radio media, as well as publication centres. Thus, if the proposed project is funded, the Danish DR2 (Karen Gahrn, Aktualitetsafdeling) is planning a theme program (DR2 tema aften) on climate, ice and society based on the project. In the US, Moira Ranking, Director of Soundprint Media Center (Maryland) finds the project theme and approach interesting and plan a series of radio programs aimed at the high-school level (skoleradio) complemented by educational material for school class work. For this purpose, funds are being applied for from the National Science Foundation, US. Similarly, we are in contact with KNR (Greenland Radio and Television) who have shown interest in joining us in connection with the field work activities in selected towns and villages.
Already, the student involvement in the project is significant. Master students have been trained in the GIS system at DMI for digitalization of ice-charts and both master and PhD students are participating in the socioeconomic activities including the piloting field campaign summer and fall 2007. This high level of student involvement will be maintained throughout the project period, and will most likely lead to a number of master reports.
Detailed description of activities and the project time-plan
The activities within the proposed project is organized in two mutually dependent components, Activity A & B and the project synthesis is disseminated at a final project seminar, Activity C.
Activity A
Project resources will be used to work up a homogeneous digital dataset of past ice conditions for the South and East Greenland waters (Scoresbysund – Cape Farewell – Nuuk), potentially back to 1950. Through several decades the South Greenland sea ice conditions has been monitored on a regular basis (up to 3-5 times per week in the ice season) by collecting sea ice observations from ships and dedicated airplane and helicopter surveys. This in particular after Ice Patrol Narsarsuaq was established in 1959. Data availability in other regions are in general less but both the South and East Greenland coverage are judged to be satisfactory for the project purpose.
Integration and digitization of historic paper ice charts by using modern GIS technology to the most recent digital ice charting standards is the key in this work package. This will build on the procedures and methodology already used in the operational Ice Service at the Danish Meteorological Institute and at the Ice Patrol in Narsarsuaq. At present there is a constant risk that the historic data on paper is lost and this work serves the additional purpose of securing this historic ice information for the future in a format which can be used by scientific or public user groups. Indeed, all historic charts localized by the group, also outside the study region, will be scanned and catalogued. Thus, this activity constitutes a valuable Danish and Greenlandic scientific contribution to the International Polar Year activities.
Based on the compiled dataset four central sub-investigations will be performed
1) A description of the temporal and spatial characteristics of the natural variability of multi-year-ice from Scoresbysund to Pamiut.
2) Investigations of the dynamic characteristics and forcing of the natural ice-variations based on a comparative study between the observed variability and existing numerical model simulations performed at DMI for 1948 to 2007 using a global coupled ocean–sea ice model forced by atmospheric reanalysis data.
3) Construction of key indices describing the navigational conditions through time at a number of selected locations identified in activity B.
4) Assess the predictability of South and East Greenland multi-year ice coverage from models and observations (statistical) for scales up to seasons based on dynamical insight gained in A2 and compare with the short term performance of the new operational forecast model for sea-ice expected to be operational in 2008 at DMI.
Activity B
The implications of climate and ice – changes on fisheries, hunting and agriculture, as well as the vulnerability of the new economies to changing multi-year-ice conditions will be identified in four case studies.
1) The relationship between changes in renewable resource exploitation and socioeconomic responses to these changes will be the target of the first case study. Starting from the register based data regarding major hunting, fishing and farming activities as well as socioeconomic characteristics of these activities, combined with the outcome of questionnaires and interviews conducted in connection with the Socio-Economic analysis from 2004-2005, the focus will be on communities, their strategies and patterns of change, in order to establish a basis for a cost-benefit analysis of changes in accessibility and resource conditions.
2) The tourist industry will focus on both the changes in trekking activities as well as the cruise line activities in this area affected by multi year ice where it is central to describe the preferred routes and sights constituting the present economic grounds, combined with the economic and social implications these activities may have on the different communities.
3) The potentials of fish farming and seaweed production as well as other a supplementary income source for the communities in South Greenland will be a third field of investigation. Recent research has shown a certain potential for these activity in sheltered fjords, with ice conditions as one of the major obstacles.
4) The economic grounds for the mining activities in the area will be exemplified by the Nalunaq gold mine. Central parameters to identify are the requirements to shipping of ore of the industry and the related costs. The latter will be related to the overall profitability of the mining activity, but will also look into the socioeconomic consequences of these activities in the region.
The methods applied in this component will be a combination of register based data analysis, and interviews with selected communities and key persons, as it is considered important to include local information from a generation who have been active respondents to the changes. Based on these analysis, the socioeconomic impacts of documented natural scenarios (in Activity A) will be assessed and quantified. Procedures for adaptation to such natural variations will be evaluated as well as their socio-economic implications, both on a community and on a regional level.
Activity C
Arrange and host a seminar for the scientific community, politicians and industry in Nuuk late 2009 based on the final synthesis report.
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PROJECT STATUS
Presently we have finalized most data collection and analysis in South Greenland, and a preliminary report will be available before the end of the year 2008.
In East Greenland the field work is just peaking, and before the end of the month we will have visited all towns and villages in East Greenland, conducting interviews and questionnaires with all the targeted groups. Additional surveys will take place during spring, and a report will be ready by mid year 2009.
We have started some field work in West Greenland, but the bulk of the activities will be during spring 2009, aiming at a regional report ready before the end of the year.
A final report including all findings is expected to be ready before 2010.