Climate-Altering Approaches and the Arctic
The Arctic region plays a key role in the global climate system acting as a carbon sink and a virtual mirror reflecting solar radiation back out into space. The rate of climate change is now significantly greater in the Arctic, which has warmed 2.4 times faster than the rest of the planet over the past 40 years.
According to the United Nations Environment Programme, an Arctic ‘climate tipping point’, or threshold that, when exceeded, leads to permanent changes in the Arctic system – and thus, over time, globally – may have already been reached. This creates a vicious circle in which ice loss reduces the amount of sunlight that is reflected into space, which in turn leads to warming and further ice loss, and accelerates permafrost melting. As a result, large stores of methane, which is almost 30 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a heat-trapping gas, are irreversibly released. If climate-altering technologies were, as is suggested by theoretical research and modelling, capable of slowing or reversing this vicious circle, it makes the region an area of special interest for those considering such climate-altering technologies to cool not only the Arctic but the entire global climate.
Publications
- 2 August 2021 Evidence Brief: Climate-altering Approaches and the Arctic
- 17 Mar 2021 Policy Brief: Climate-Altering Approaches and the Arctic (中文) (Français) (Español) (Pусский)
Blogs
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Videos
Saving the Arctic: Ethics, Values & the Next Generation – Ashley Komangaapik Rose Cummings
Ashley Komangaapik Rose Cummings is from Pangnirtung, Nunavut, Canada. She is a member of Canada’s Prime Minister’s Youth Council (PMYC) and does extensive work in youth engagement and advocacy for Inuit and youth. Ashley joined a session on "Saving the Arctic:...
Can we Refreeze the Arctic? Geoengineering Governance
Guest Clip / Panel Discussion on 13 November 2017 (COP23), featuring Janos Pasztor (C2G2), Hugh Hunt (University of Cambridge), Matthias Honegger (IASS-Potsdam & Perspectives), and hosted by Stuart Scott (United Planet Faith and Science Initiative)