Litter and Microplastics: Environmental monitoring in the Arctic

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Rene Larsen ◽  
Jennifer Provencher ◽  
Eivind Farmen
Keyword(s):  
Sea Ice ◽  
Monitoring Program ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Expert Group ◽  
Plastic Pollution ◽  
Arctic Council ◽  
Arctic Ecosystem ◽  
The Status ◽  
New Research ◽  
Climate Crisis

<p>While the Arctic Ecosystem is already stressed by the effects of the climate crisis, another threat is emerging: plastics. Plastic pollution has become an environmental issue of the highest concern world-wide, and the plastic pollution tide is also rising in the Arctic.</p><p>The pristine Arctic environments, far from most of the world’s major industrial areas, are becoming laden with plastic pollution. Microplastics have been found in Arctic snow, sea-ice, seawater, in sediments collected on the ocean floor, and on Arctic beaches. Larger pieces of plastic debris are also making their way into the food webs as whales, fish and birds can ingest them or get entangled in them. Climate change is expected to exacerbate the amount of debris in the Arctic, via melting sea-ice and increasing contributions from human activities.</p><p>The Artic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP) is a Working Group of the Arctic Council. AMAP has a mandate to monitor and assess the status and trends of contaminants in the Arctic. In the Spring of 2019, AMAP decided to step up its efforts on the plastic issue and established an Expert Group on microplastics and litter with experts from Artic Council States and Observer countries.</p><p>The Expert Group has developed a comprehensive monitoring plan and technical guidelines for monitoring microplastics and litter in the Arctic. It will be the first time that all parts of the Arctic ecosystem are examined for traces of this type of pollution. The Expert Group aims to:</p><ul><li>Design a program for the monitoring of microplastics and litter in the Arctic environment.</li> <li>Develop necessary guidelines supporting the monitoring program.</li> <li>Formulate recommendations and identify areas where new research and development is necessary from an Arctic perspective.</li> </ul>

scholarly journals Engineering Properties of Sea Ice

1977 ◽  
Vol 19 (81) ◽  
pp. 499-531 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Schwarz ◽  
W. F. Weeks
Keyword(s):  
Sea Ice ◽  
Physical Properties ◽  
Field Studies ◽  
Engineering Properties ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Electromagnetic Properties ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Human Society ◽  
Continental Shelves ◽  
The Status

AbstractAs the continental shelves of the Arctic become important as source areas for the oil and minerals required by human society, sea ice becomes an increasing challenge to engineers. The present paper starts with a consideration of the different fields of engineering which require information on sea ice with the tasks ranging from the design of ice-breaking ships to Arctic drilling platforms and man-made ice islands. Then the structure of sea ice is described as it influences the observed variations in physical properties. Next the status of our knowledge of the physical properties important to engineering is reviewed. Properties discussed include mechanical properties (compressive, tensile, shear and flexural strengths; dynamic and static elastic moduli; Poisson’s ratio), friction and adhesion, thermal properties (specific and latent heats, thermal conductivity and diffusivity, density) and finally electromagnetic properties (dielectric permittivity and loss, resistivity). Particular attention is given to parameters such as temperature, strain-rate, brine volume, and loading direction as they affect property variations. Gaps, contradictions in the data, and inadequacies in testing techniques are pointed out. Finally suggestions are made for future research, especially for more basic laboratory studies designed to provide the data base upon which further theoretical developments as well as field studies can be built.

The role of sea ice for plastic pollution in the Arctic

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ilka Peeken ◽  
Elisa Bergami ◽  
Ilaria Corsi ◽  
Benedikt Hufnagl ◽  
Christian Katlein ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sea Ice ◽  
Arctic Ocean ◽  
Long Range ◽  
Environmental Concern ◽  
Ice Cores ◽  
Atlantic Water ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Polar Regions ◽  
Plastic Pollution ◽  
The Arctic Ocean

<p>Marine plastic pollution is a growing worldwide environmental concern as recent reports indicate that increasing quantities of litter disperse into secluded environments, including Polar Regions. Plastic degrades into smaller fragments under the influence of sunlight, temperature changes, mechanic abrasion and wave action resulting in small particles < 5mm called microplastics (MP). Sea ice cores, collected in the Arctic Ocean have so far revealed extremely high concentrations of very small microplastic particles, which might be transferred in the ecosystem with so far unknown consequences for the ice dependant marine food chain.  Sea ice has long been recognised as a transport vehicle for any contaminates entering the Arctic Ocean from various long range and local sources. The Fram Strait is hereby both, a major inflow gateway of warm Atlantic water, with any anthropogenic imprints and the major outflow region of sea ice originating from the Siberian shelves and carried via the Transpolar Drift. The studied sea ice revealed a unique footprint of microplastic pollution, which were related to different water masses and indicating different source regions. Climate change in the Arctic include loss of sea ice, therefore, large fractions of the embedded plastic particles might be released and have an impact on living systems. By combining modeling of sea ice origin and growth, MP particle trajectories in the water column as well as MPs long-range transport via particle tracking and transport models we get first insights  about the sources and pathways of MP in the Arctic Ocean and beyond and how this might affect the Arctic ecosystem.</p>

Can the Arctic Council and the Northern Forum find common ground?

Polar Record ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 38 (207) ◽  
pp. 289-296 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oran R. Young
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Bureaucratic Politics ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Arctic Council ◽  
Global Issues ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Voice ◽  
Two Bodies

AbstractThe Arctic Environmental Protection Strategy (the forerunner of the Arctic Council) and the Northern Forum are both products of the sea change in Arctic politics occurring in the wake of the end of the Cold War. Both are soft law arrangements and both are lightly institutionalized. Yet these similarities have not provided a basis for collaboration between the Arctic Council (AC) and the Northern Forum (NF). For the most part, the two bodies have behaved like ships passing in the night. This article seeks to explain this lack of collaboration and to evaluate future prospects in this realm. The lack of collaboration is attributable in part to a number of sources of tension or fault lines, including issues relating to core-periphery relations, the concerns of indigenous peoples, divergent constituencies, the Russian connection, and bureaucratic politics and the complexities of political leadership. In part, it stems from ambiguities about the status of the AC and the NF combined with restrictions on the roles these bodies can play. There is little prospect of combining the two bodies into a more comprehensive Arctic regime. But there are opportunities to devise a realistic division of labor and to develop useful coordination mechanisms. The AC, for example, is the appropriate vehicle for efforts to strengthen the voice of the Arctic regarding global issues; the NF is well-suited to dealing with matters of community viability. Ultimately, the two bodies might consider creating a joint working group on sustainable development or organizing occasional joint meetings of the AC's Senior Arctic Officials and the NF's Executive Committee.

scholarly journals Pollution over the Tibetan Plateau Linked to Sea Ice Loss in the Arctic

Eos ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 101 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Allen
Keyword(s):  
Tibetan Plateau ◽  
Sea Ice ◽  
Arctic Sea Ice ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
The Tibetan Plateau ◽  
Anthropogenic Aerosol ◽  
Ice Melt ◽  
Arctic Sea ◽  
Aerosol Pollution ◽  
New Research

New research suggests an atmospheric connection between Arctic sea ice melt and anthropogenic aerosol pollution over the Tibetan Plateau.

scholarly journals Consultative meetings of non-Arctic states on the status of the Arctic

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 296-318
Author(s):  
Alexander N. Vylegzhanin ◽  
◽  
Elena V. Kienko ◽  
Keyword(s):  
South Korea ◽  
Arctic Ocean ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Legal Regime ◽  
Arctic Council ◽  
The Arctic Ocean ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Arctic Policy ◽  
New Instruments

The article, in the context of the contemporary status of the Arctic, examines the legal and political documents adopted by China, Japan and South Korea in regard to their arctic policy, including those agreed upon by these three States. The alarming reaction to such documents in the Arctic coastal states, firstly, in the USA and Canada, is also considered in the article. Relevant western scholars’ arguments are scrutinized, such as the increase of “China’s military power”; China’s “insatiable appetite” for access to natural resources in the Arctic; the argument that “China seeks to dominate” the Arctic and the situation when “the Arctic Council is split”; the notion that China makes other non-Arctic States create separate legal documents concerning the regime of the Arctic Ocean. The article concludes that the western interpretation of such documents is alarming only in relation to China. The research shows that up till now there are no grounds for such estimations of China’s negative role. However, statements by Chinese officials as cited in the article and some provisions stipulated in “China’s Arctic policy” contradict the common will of the Arctic coastal states in regard to the legal regime of the Arctic Ocean as reflected in the Ilulissat Declaration of 2008. In such a dynamic legal environment, new instruments of collaboration are in demand, which might involve China and other non-Arctic states in maintaining the established legal regime of the Arctic. Thus, the new instruments would deter the creation (with unpredictable consequences) by China, Japan and South Korea of new trilateral acts relating to the status of the Arctic.

Vocabularies for human development: Arctic politics and the power of knowledge

Polar Record ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 191-200 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heidi Sinevaara-Niskanen
Keyword(s):  
Human Development ◽  
Arctic Region ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Arctic Council ◽  
The Status ◽  
Common Notion ◽  
The Common ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Is Value ◽  
The Arctic Region

ABSTRACTThe Arctic Council (AC) has been accorded the status of knowledge holder and knowledge provider for the Arctic region. This paper probes the broader definition-making power of Arctic knowledge, challenging the common notion that this knowledge is value neutral. It argues that attention should be paid to the ways in which power is exercised in, and though, the various reports and assessments published under the auspices of the AC. The specific focus of the paper is human development and gender as an aspect of that development. The research analyses the Arctic Human Development Report (AHDR) in order to examine the ways in which knowledge defines human development and its agents in the Arctic. The paper draws on Foucault-inspired and feminist approaches to analyse three vocabularies of rule in particular: strength of the community, vulnerability and the need for adaptation. These vocabularies are coexistent and share an emphasis on communities. Yet, questions of gender seldom figure in them, a lack of salience that reveals the power of the partiality of knowledge. The politics of knowledge operate by placing in the foreground only certain accounts of Arctic development.

scholarly journals Engineering Properties of Sea Ice

1977 ◽  
Vol 19 (81) ◽  
pp. 499-531 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Schwarz ◽  
W. F. Weeks
Keyword(s):  
Sea Ice ◽  
Physical Properties ◽  
Field Studies ◽  
Engineering Properties ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Electromagnetic Properties ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Human Society ◽  
Continental Shelves ◽  
The Status

AbstractAs the continental shelves of the Arctic become important as source areas for the oil and minerals required by human society, sea ice becomes an increasing challenge to engineers. The present paper starts with a consideration of the different fields of engineering which require information on sea ice with the tasks ranging from the design of ice-breaking ships to Arctic drilling platforms and man-made ice islands. Then the structure of sea ice is described as it influences the observed variations in physical properties. Next the status of our knowledge of the physical properties important to engineering is reviewed. Properties discussed include mechanical properties (compressive, tensile, shear and flexural strengths; dynamic and static elastic moduli; Poisson’s ratio), friction and adhesion, thermal properties (specific and latent heats, thermal conductivity and diffusivity, density) and finally electromagnetic properties (dielectric permittivity and loss, resistivity). Particular attention is given to parameters such as temperature, strain-rate, brine volume, and loading direction as they affect property variations. Gaps, contradictions in the data, and inadequacies in testing techniques are pointed out. Finally suggestions are made for future research, especially for more basic laboratory studies designed to provide the data base upon which further theoretical developments as well as field studies can be built.

Procedural reform at the Arctic Council: the amended 2015 Observer Manual

Polar Record ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 52 (5) ◽  
pp. 601-605 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sebastian Knecht
Keyword(s):  
Task Force ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Expert Group ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Arctic Council ◽  
Essential Step ◽  
Reform Processes ◽  
Procedural Reform ◽  
Overall Functioning ◽  
Practical Implications

ABSTRACTThis note studies the addendum to the Arctic Council (AC)'s 2013 Observer Manual adopted at the Senior Arctic Officials’ (SAO) meeting in Anchorage, Alaska, in October 2015. The amendment means another essential step to systematise further and improve the council's working relations with currently 32 entities that hold observer status in the forum. Compared to the initial manual that sketched out the role observers should play in the council's subsidiary bodies, the latest revisions delineate a framework for enhancing observer participation and commitment in working group, task force and expert group meetings. After reviewing the content and practical implications of the addendum in the context of larger reform efforts to adapt the council to the age of a global(ising) Arctic, the article further discusses a number of signals the Anchorage decision sends to observers. These comprise the council's willingness and ability to quick, unified and purposeful action towards institutional adaptation and procedural reform as considered necessary to address organisational deficiencies, strengthened top-down steering of the reform processes by SAOs as related to the work conducted in subsidiary bodies and the overall functioning of the council, and higher expectations on observers to contribute to the AC system and deliver on the new provisions.

Anticipating the Arctic and the Arctic Council: pre-emption, precaution and preparedness

Polar Record ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 193-203 ◽  
Author(s):  
Klaus J. Dodds
Keyword(s):  
Sea Ice ◽  
Arctic Region ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Arctic Council ◽  
The Future ◽  
Per Se ◽  
The Arctic Region

ABSTRACTThis paper considers the role of the Arctic Council (AC) and its relationship to the future or even futures. Factors such as sea ice thinning and melting permafrost, alongside globalisation, have been cited as consequential in transforming the Arctic region. While we might be cautious about the novelty of change per se, there is a need for further debate about how the ‘future’ is imagined and put into practice. Exploring different logics, including precaution, pre-emption and preparedness, consideration is offered on how the AC attempts to anticipate the future. The contentious role of observers is investigated by way of an example, and it is concluded that there is more work to be done in terms of how different futures are assembled, mobilised and put into practice.

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