GC31B-1183
Rapid Arctic Changes due to Infrastructure and Climate (RATIC) in the Russian North
Wednesday, 16 December 2015
Poster Hall (Moscone South)
Donald A Walker1, Gary Kofinas2, Martha K Raynolds2, Mikhail Z Kanevskiy2, Yuri Shur2, Ken Ambrosius3, George V Matyshak4, Vladimir E Romanovsky2, Timo Kumpula5, Bruce C. Forbes6, Artem Khukmotov4, Marina O Leibman7, Olga Khitun8, Mickaël Lemay9, Michel Allard10, Scott F. Lamoureux11, Trevor Bell12, Donald L Forbes13, Warwick F Vincent10, Elena Kuznetsova14, Dmitry A Streletskiy15, Nikolay I Shiklomanov15, Gail Fondahl16, Andrey Petrov17, Louis-Philippe Roy18, Peter Schweitzer19 and Marcel Buchhorn2, (1)University of Alaska Fairbanks, Institute of Arctic Biology, Fairbanks, AK, United States, (2)University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, AK, United States, (3)Quantum Spatial Co., Anchorage, AK, United States, (4)Earth Cryosphere Institute, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, Tyumen, Russia, (5)University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu, Finland, (6)University of Lapland, Rovaniemi, Finland, (7)Russian Academy of Sciences, Earth Cryosphere Institute, Siberian Branch,, Moscow, Russia, (8)RAS, Komarov Botanical Institute, St. Petersburg, Russia, (9)CEN - U. Laval, Québec, QC, Canada, (10)Laval University, Quebec City, QC, Canada, (11)Queens University, Department of Geography, Kingston, ON, Canada, (12)Memorial University of Newfoundland, Department of Geography, St. John's, NL, Canada, (13)Geological Survey of Canada, Natural Resources Canada, Dartmouth, NS, Canada, (14)Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway, (15)The George Washington University, Department of Geography, Washington, DC, United States, (16)University of Northern British Columbia, Prince George, BC, Canada, (17)University of Northern Iowa, Department of Geography, Cedar Falls, IA, United States, (18)Yukon College, Yukon Research Centre, Whitehorse, YT, Canada, (19)University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
Abstract:
The Rapid Arctic Transitions due to Infrastructure and Climate (RATIC) initiative is a forum developed by the International Arctic Science Committee (IASC) Terrestrial, Cryosphere, and Social & Human working groups for developing and sharing new ideas and methods to facilitate the best practices for assessing, responding to, and adaptively managing the cumulative effects of Arctic infrastructure and climate change. An IASC white paper summarizes the activities of two RATIC workshops at the Arctic Change 2014 Conference in Ottawa, Canada and the 2015 Third International Conference on Arctic Research Planning (ICARP III) meeting in Toyama, Japan (Walker & Pierce, ed. 2015). Here we present an overview of the recommendations from several key papers and posters presented at these conferences with a focus on oil and gas infrastructure in the Russian north and comparison with oil development infrastructure in Alaska. These analyses include: (1) the effects of gas- and oilfield activities on the landscapes and the Nenets indigenous reindeer herders of the Yamal Peninsula, Russia; (2) a study of urban infrastructure in the vicinity of Norilsk, Russia, (3) an analysis of the effects of pipeline-related soil warming on trace-gas fluxes in the vicinity of Nadym, Russia, (4) two Canadian initiatives that address multiple aspects of Arctic infrastructure called Arctic Development and Adaptation to Permafrost in Transition (ADAPT) and the ArcticNet Integrated Regional Impact Studies (IRIS), and (5) the effects of oilfield infrastructure on landscapes and permafrost in the Prudhoe Bay region, Alaska.
