ArcticNet 2022 Conference: Climate Change, Indigenous Communities and Research Challenges in the Arctic and My Presentation on Ocean Noise

ArcticNet is a Network of Centres of Excellence in Canada to study the impacts of rapid natural, climate, health and socio-economic changes in the Arctic. It does so by partnering with Inuit organizations, northern communities, federal and provincial governments, and international research teams throughout Denmark, Finland, France, Greenland, Japan, Norway, Poland, Russia, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Every year it organizes its flagship ArcticNet Annual Scientific Meeting (ASM) at a different Canadian location to highlight Arctic and northern research happening in Canada. The meeting brings together thousands of researchers, community leaders, engineers, officials from the government and the private sector, young professionals, students, and the media.

ArcticNet Annual Scientific Meeting (ASM) 2022, Toronto

The 2022 ArcticNet Conference was held from December 4-8 at the Beanfield Centre in Toronto, Ontario. The objective of ASM2022 was to advance our collective understanding with an inclusive view of the North spanning from Inuit Nunangat across the Canadian territories and provinces, circumpolar Arctic regions, and beyond. It was my first time participating in an ArcticNet conference. In 2020 and 2021, the ArticNet Conference was organized virtually because of the COVID-19 pandemic. After a gap of two years, it physically brought together over 1200 people interested in Arctic-related research. As Toronto is far from the Arctic and the oceans, it is uncommon to have such an eclectic and distinguished community with experience working on Arctic and northern issues gathered here. Almost 35 % of the participants were from indigenous and northern communities.

Why I Decided to Participate in ArcticNet?

I learned about ArcticNet through some of the virtual events last year. Inspired by some of the research poster presentations I came across, especially those on shipping and tourism in the Arctic, piqued my interest. My ongoing research on Anthropogenic Ocean Noise had an Arctic component. I used several years of open data from a hydrophone operated by Ocean Networks Canada in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, to monitor changes in ocean noise in the Arctic. This data was used in my webApp www.MonitorMyOcean.com, endorsed by IOC- UNESCO as a UN Ocean Decade activity. As I plan to keep adding newer data points to this App and expand it to other oceanic regions, participating in ArcticNet would help me connect with researchers who could provide feedback and connect me with more data repositories. In addition, the venue of the 2022 conference was the Beanfield Centre in Toronto – just a few kilometres from my home and school. I could attend the conference every weekday afternoon after attending school. All these reasons motivated me to apply to the 2022 ArcticNet Conference.

I submitted an abstract for the conference based on my research project on ocean noise. It was very encouraging when my abstract was accepted. I was invited to deliver an oral talk at the ArcticNet conference in the session: MAR55-Shipping and Transportation in the Arctic.

I attended some of the ECNR sessions. One of the sessions that stood out for me was on conducting research in the Arctic, with a focus on bear safety. The session focused on practical aspects of Arctic research, such as bear safety, sustainability, limiting our environmental footprint, and cultural sensitiveness.

I got the opportunity to meet ASM Scientific Directors Jackie Dawson and Phillipe Archambault, who were kind enough to welcome me to ArcticNet and introduce me to some other researchers.

Key Learnings from the ArcticNet Conference

I attended several events over the next few days. As I did not want to miss school, I was only able to participate in afternoon events – rushing to the venue from school but staying until late to be able to participate in all the remaining events.

Merging Indigenous Knowledge with Modern Technologies 

Indigenous knowledge accumulated over generations is critical for preserving the Arctic habitat and marine mammal conservation. For instance, observations made by indigenous hunters are being used to create statistical spatial maps of ring seals on the shoreline and to improve the accuracy of population forecasting models.

Many northern researchers are applying digital technologies such as crowdsourcing to map local knowledge of Inuits during their regular visits to the field, such as collecting data points on ice thickness, cracks on ice, hazards, weather patterns, or wildlife sightings. For instance, community-based Monitoring in Nunatsiavut combines indigenous observations with simple measurements to characterize the arctic char fish ecosystem. Seasonal winter camps are set up to monitor fisheries and undertake stock assessments.

Arctic-specific technologies, such as low-bandwidth Apps, Apps that can culturally annotate data, or those incorporating features and indicators that are meaningful to communities, can support the community-based efforts to preserve and manage the Arctic habitat.

Transboundary Pollution in the Arctic: Investigating sources of pollutants and their abatement 

One of the fascinating sessions I attended was the plenary panel discussion on the “Sensitivity of Arctic Regions to Contaminants and Pollutants” held on the last day of the conference. It featured presentations from several arctic researchers.

I learned how black carbon — a particle produced in combustion emitted primarily in Europe and Asia drifts to the polar cap due to the arctic heat flux and ends up in the snow. The presence of these particles significantly reduces the spectral albedo of the snow, meaning less solar radiation is reflected into the atmosphere — speeding up the melting of glaciers and sea ice in the Arctic. It is a clear example of how pollutants do not respect national boundaries. Often, the communities that must adapt the most to the presence of pollutants in their environment contributed the least to it. We need to strengthen policy regimes and undertake pollution abatement projects at the source to ensure pollutants emitted from industrialization in Eurasia do not end up in the Arctic.

But how to identify the source of the pollutants? A research presentation focused on an innovative way of using lead isotopes to trace harmful pollutants to their origin. While lead occurs naturally in the environment, the high levels in the Arctic regions come chiefly from human activities. It is a byproduct of industrial processes and urban sources and is often found alongside other contaminants. By measuring the concentration of lead isotopes in the environment, it is possible to investigate where the other contaminants came from and trace their route from the South to the Arctic.

Other tools to measure the concentration of heavy metals could be biomarkers, as I learned from a research study focused on long-term contaminant monitoring in sea birds in Canadian Arctic. The researcher studied the archived egg tissue from 1975 – 2017 to track the presence of these harmful substances.

I also learned about new pollution-related terminologies such as POPs or Persistent Organic Pollutants. These are harmful soluble compounds that can travel via atmospheric winds and oceans. The more soluble a POP is, the less likely it will sink and can travel long distances. International regulations and conventions, such as the UNEP Stockholm convention to measure traces of 12 harmful compounds in different fluids such as air, ocean and drinking water, have effectively reduced the concentration of these pollutants over the past decades. However, climate change and the volatility of secondary replacements of these harmful chemicals pose new challenges, and their levels are not declining at the expected rate.

Open Data and Data Standardisation

Petabytes of new Arctic data are generated daily via local communities and sensors placed on the ground, in space and in oceans. While data generated increases exponentially, the research community that can process and produce timely analysis from this data does not grow at the same rate.

To bridge the gap between data and its analysis, we need to make data available in an open-access but ethical manner. Any data archival system should guarantee the right of indigenous communities to control and access their data at every stage.

Respecting local knowledge, ethical data collection, standardization of data, annotation, attribution, ensuring accuracy, and archiving in an interoperable format will make the data more usable and speed up analysis, benefiting local communities, decision-makers and the public. It will also draw a broader community of researchers, data scientists, youths, and data entrepreneurs to use this data and create useful products and services.

There is a spectrum for data standardization. On one end, we have the researchers for whom correct terminologies and data annotation is essential for research and publications. Then we have the national governmental and international agencies. Creating national policies and meeting requirements set under international agreements require consistency in data collection, measurement and monitoring methodologies. And finally, we have the local communities and the public, who should be able to understand the terminologies and draw meaningful conclusions from the data.

Climate Change and the Arctic

Rising temperatures, melting polar ice caps, thawing of the permafrost, year-round shipping: it is clear that climate change is rapidly affecting the Arctic. As the ArcticNet 2022 conference had many sessions, posters and exhibits prepared by the northern researchers, it was like getting a firsthand account of changes happening in the Arctic. The impact of these changes is felt most by the northern communities and the next generations who have to adapt their livelihoods, food, culture and lifestyles. It is exacerbating the existing disparities in health issues and year-round food security.

I attended some sessions on technical monitoring of the Arctic ecosystem, including on the melting of northern hemisphere glaciers and the increase in permafrost temperatures triggering large-scale changes, including reshaping landscapes and ecosystems. I learned about Glacier hypsometry or the science of assessing a glacier’s response to climate change. It involves measuring changes in the mass balance and the volume of the glaciers. Comparing results over the years yields important information, such as how much melting ice masses contribute to rising sea levels and the relationships between ice masses and climate.

Climate change is also increasing ocean temperatures leading to an inflow of freshwater from melting glaciers, a reduction in sea ice cover and shifts in atmospheric and oceanic circulation patterns. These directly impact marine diversity, including changes in fish stocks and disruption in return migration patterns of Arctic char to the lakes they spawned in.

Acknowledgements

I take this opportunity to thank the RISE – Schmidt Futures for funding my participation in ArcticNet by paying my registration fees. I also thank the session chairs, Jean Holloway, University of Ottawa and Nicolien van Luijk, Memorial University, for accepting my abstract for an oral talk at the ArcticNet 2022.