Northern Climate ExChange

September 2000 Workshop:
A Northern Assessment of the Impacts of Climate Change

Contents

Introduction and Meeting Objectives

Aynslie Ogden
Northern Climate ExChange

1.1 Introduction

The Northern Climate ExChange, with assistance from an interdisciplinary project team, are mid-way through a project to understand the quantity and quality of available information on the impacts of climate change in northern Canada. To assist us with this project, a workshop was held in September, 2000 entitled A Northern Assessment of the Impacts of Climate Change: Defining our Knowledge Base and Research Priorities.

The workshop brought together government, community representatives, practitioners and researchers from across the north to assist with assessing the state of knowledge of climate change impacts on various human and natural systems in northern Canada.

Not surprisingly, this was a very challenging workshop, especially when we discussed the development of community-based priorities for climate change research in north. Despite these challenges, workshop participants developed encouraging and forward-looking recommendations that will assist the project team in providing a product from this project that are of greater value to its users.

1.2 Project Significance

As many northerners are aware, concern has been growing during the last few decades that increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere will change our climate in ways that may be detrimental to our environmental, social and economic systems. There is a wealth of information to demonstrate that the global climate has warmed during the past 150 years. Temperature increase has not been constant, but has consisted of warming and cooling cycles at intervals of several decades. The long-term trend is one of net global warming with the ten warmest years since 1880 all having occurred in the 1980s or 1990s. Corresponding with this warming, many environmental changes have been observed across northern Canada -- alpine glaciers have been retreating, permafrost has thawed, sea levels have risen, arctic ice has been thinning, and climatic zones have been shifting. However, it is important to note that observations on climate and environmental change differ across the Canadian north.

A changing climate will affect many components of the northern environment. Northern regions are predicted to receive the earliest and most extreme impacts as a result of a changing climate. Scenarios of climate change, based on experimental results of General Circulation Models of the atmosphere for a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide, suggest that this region could warm up by 5°C by the middle of the 21st century. These changes will affect the northern economy, wildlife, traditional cultures and recreational activities. Stakeholders will need to respond to the effects of climate change on water and land resources. These responses will be influenced by the political, lifestyle and economic choices made by government officials, community residents and industry leaders in response to these changes (Stewart Cohen, 1997). The availability and accessibility of information upon which decisions are made will also influence responses.

This project is designed to determine the amount and type of information that exists on climate change impacts. The project is intended for use by communities, researchers and policy-makers to assist them in developing appropriate actions on this issue. The project is also intended to facilitate the development of priorities for research, policy, and data collection in Northern Canada.

Northern communities must be involved in the process of developing research priorities for reasons including those listed below:

This project provides an opportunity for Northerners to learn more about climate change, and to contribute their knowledge so that a regional response to minimizing vulnerability to climate change impacts can be developed. With community involvement in the project, we hope that the evolving needs of northern communities, industries and governments in response to this issue will begin to be addressed. Through ongoing consultation, we hope this project will assist in deriving 'useful' approaches to addressing community needs in the future.

1.3 Project Description

This workshop focused on a project that is currently underway at the Northern Climate ExChange -- A Northern Assessment of the Impacts of Climate Change. This project involves a broad analysis of the current state of documented knowledge (both scientific and local) of the impacts of climate change in Canada's north. This exercise is designed to provide researchers, communities, and policy-makers with sound baseline information on what is known about climate change and its effects on northern Canada. The assessment is intended to facilitate the establishment of priorities for climate change research, monitoring, technological development, policy development, etc. in Canada's north. This project will also assist those faced with developing strategies to adapt to a changing climate and are in need of information to assist them with this task.

The Project will yield a number of products including:

1.4 Workshop Objectives

The objectives of the workshop were as follows:

1.5 Project Partners

The Northern Climate ExChange would like to extend gratitude to the agencies and individuals whose contributions have made this project possible.

The project team consists of representatives from a number of agencies including:

This project is funded by:

A special thank you is also given to our workshop facilitator, Doug Urquhart, of Quill Consulting, and to the over 60 participants at the workshop.