“Every day we wonder whose death we will be hearing about, who in our family will be next. We wonder when we will next be at one of those funerals”, explains a resident of the Arctic, in grief.
It has been a problem since long time now that the younger population of indigenous communities surviving in the Arctic, young men in particular, are finding it easier to end their lives raising the local suicide rates to a range of 75- 250 people per 100,000.
One of the biggest culprits in recent times has been ever-increased warming and every tipping point passed, obstructing any further hope of survival leading to climate anxiety.
Warming and a sensation of loss, helplessness & Anxiety
This can simply be understood from a single point of concern that the Arctic has witnessed an increase in its temperatures which has been recorded to be more than twice the speed of change any other location on the Earth has experienced or is experiencing.
It has been observed that one or two decades ago, a thick layer of ice sustained for three to four months, now it just remains for one or two weeks or maybe days and then vanishes, indicative of an impending crisis.
It is to note that around 66 per cent of the human settlements in Arctic are based on ice rich permafrost driving their survival in the Arctic. With it eroding, mere survival of multiple species in the region is vulnerable to be eroded.
Since most of their buildings, routes or other forms of infrastructure are held by ice, damage to these has become inevitable.
For instance, if we are to believe the hunters of northwest Greenland, the period when they can travel efficiently on sea ice has abruptly decreased from five months earlier to just three months span, bringing in uninvited dangers of transport.
In addition, the availability of their conventional foods such as whales, seabirds, walrus, seals etc., has reduced.
And therefore, local communities everywhere, especially the Arctic have become our frontlines, whose entire lives & livelihoods are subject to a mere degree in global temperatures.
These are the most visible effects in the region but there are certain intangible impacts too.
Like greater than 85 per cent of Alaskan villages near the geographic pole currently experience flooding and erosion in one way or the other.
Heavy and unprecedented snowfall has induced recorded avalanches and even landslides in the past decade. It may be surprising but the coastal erosion rates in the region are one of the world’s highest till date.
But equally likely, any incidence of wildfire has also increased in Siberia.
Where does the worst come? The problem appears nasty of all, when the intricately-preserved traditional practices of many of these communities are threatened.
The Arctic hosts almost a population of four million today roughly 10 percent of the which are Indigenous and have their origins distinct to the Arctic.
Apart from an immediate impact on its inhabitants, the warming has wreaked havoc for its Indigenous society as they find their ties to the natural world around them pathetically weakened.
Like any another indigenous society, this invaluable connection to one’s immediate nature is a crucial component of one’s health, identity, ethnicity and a treasure they intend to pass down onto their next generations.
Therefore, climate change has induced identity and cultural deviations in the arctic lifestyle.
Can we really understand who is at a real loss?
New Delhi standing at latitude 28.6139° N, 77.2090° E has a fair distance of around 6835 kms to the world’s geographic North Pole that rests at 90.0000° N, 135.0000° W with different ecosystems, different demography, different cultures, different modes of survival.
But whatever happens in the Arctic does not stay there.
Science has helped us understand if the studies being undertaken in the Arctic have any link with the sheer reality of living in the region.
Technology in the area has helped us answer this in complete depth, by unravelling secrets one by one.
Deep within the Arctic ice sheets lie millenniums of climate history embedded, that has the power to suggest what can be expected as the current climate changes.
Additionally, the excess heat from tropical regions is balanced in the arctic thereby making Arctic climatic changes a crucial stakeholder in understanding the global circulations of heat.
The last 40 years in the region have seen significant strides in increasing satellite coverage to the remotest corners of the Arctic.
Other technologies have aided in operations like seafloor mapping, remote sensing, computer simulations etc., to understand the Arctic climate and ways to improve transport, navigation, weather forecasting and even resource management in the short-term.
Meanwhile there are meaningful collaborations between the scientific community and indigenous populations so that their traditional knowledge and survival instinct can traverse across the globe.
This composes of historical observations relative to ecosystem health, sea ice thickness, erosion etc. that can help juggle a complete picture of the past, present, and possible future of the Arctic climate.
With this knowledge being added with every passing second, there is a chance that global communities can develop better and easier strategies for early climate mitigation, adaptation and even resilience.
How do countries touching the Arctic collaborate in better ways?
Unlike the largely open circumpolar South, the global North pole finds ‘cooperation, coordination and interaction’ to discuss common concerns among eight arctic states i.e., Canada, the United States, Russia, Iceland, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Norway under the refuge of “Arctic Council”.
India is an observer state in the council.
Alongside the council, various other organisations like International Maritime Organization (IMO), International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Circumpolar Conservation Union (CCU), World Meteorological Organization (WMO), Circumpolar seabird Expert Group (CBIRD) etc., aim to protect its serene ecosystem with the help of certain private ventures running on the ground.
For example, despite the increased receding of sea ice and keeping aside the needs of indigenous subsistence hunting, countries have aimed to protect the Chukchi Sea polar bears & their population stabilized consequently.
Much of the data on the ongoing permafrost thawing has come from a German-affiliated Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research.
These studies have proven to be precious in most contexts and have done more good to the world with the help of indigenous communities than any other work in the region.
However, most of them are now pulling back their strings because of the continued power struggle between Russia and the NATO-backed Ukraine and the sanctions applied on the former.
After years of operations in Siberia’s Samoylov Island research station, the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research has withdrawn completely and their studies remain elusive.
Recent war and the road to positive knowledge addition:
War enjoys every privilege and comes at the centre of every formidable decision.
This has buried almost every multi-national collaboration with Russia as a stakeholder, especially in the Arctic.
Be it protecting the polar bears or conducting the whale studies or for permafrost thawing, ice melts, peatland or wildfires or indigenous suicides on the run, everything has taken a back seat.
In the words of a regional expert: “So much of what we need to know about these impacts is being lost. It’s hard to see how we are going to be able to resume the science without the government and non-government funding [for] us and the Russians, and without us being there to work with their scientists.”
This pause is partly driven by Russia’s want of more resources for personal vendetta and partly by the other seven Arctic Council states who have suspended any classless communication with Russia.
Other reasons being the scientists fleeing the country or being silenced by the already-troubled Russian authorities, or being denied the required funds, further technology or infrastructure.
This happens while the time is swiftly acting in collusion with nature.
With an intense ice loss, newly carved shipping routes in the arctic and consequent pollution, the arctic states are fighting for new boundary lines in order to claim maximum continental shelf under their dominion where lies the profitable fossil fuel deposits for fueling their stalled economies.
The Arctic Ocean seabed will be no exception soon.
One can imagine how much carbon stored inside these untouched deposits will be emitted once they are set wide open.
Similar is the story of Russia’s (& others’) peatlands frozen in permafrost, which are just ready to be explored & wounded, irrespective of any lesson learnt.
There is a much-established consensus among environmentalists worldwide that in a scenario where Ukraine crisis gets worse, “there is ample space for the Arctic governance to get even worse.”