Arctic Alaska: Are adaptation strategies possible in the far north?

Background/Question/Methods

The Arctic is changing more rapidly due to climate change than any other region on earth.  Warming temperatures are transforming this region in many ways.  The warming reducing sea ice is also affecting the permafrost-dominated geology in the terrestrial Arctic.  Earlier onset to spring, erosion of permafrost, encroachment of boreal flora (particularly woody vegetation) and fauna, and a drier landscape (as evaporation exceeds increases in precipitation) are among the important transformative processes reshaping the Arctic.  Arctic Alaska contains one of, if not the biggest wetland complexes in the circumpolar Arctic and it is here that wildlife diversity and abundance is greatest.  Millions of migratory birds (particularly waterfowl, shorebirds, and loons) arrive from wintering grounds from all over the world to breed in the short but productive summer, and four immense caribou herds migrate from southern mountains and foothills to calve their young in the coastal plain.  Resident terrestrial wildlife, including snowy owl, ptarmigan, musk ox, Arctic fox, and increasingly terrestrially-bound polar bears are all facing an uncertain future in the changing Arctic.  We have been conducting studies of nest productivity, primarily of shorebirds and songbirds, in both the Prudhoe Bay oilfields and in remote camps in western Arctic Alaska since 2002.  We also convened a stakeholder workshop among Arctic Alaska scientists and managers in 2009 focusing on the identification of new conservation priorities arising from the changing climate.

Results/Conclusions

There is little to no capacity to manage Arctic landscapes to ameliorate the changes arising from the warming climate.  These tundra environs are fragile and do not recover from disturbance in a meaningful time frame for management.  For Arctic wildlife, the capacity for “adaptation” (the misapplied, co-opted term from evolutionary biology) is unclear.  For the shorebirds and other migratory breeding birds we have studied, the emerging potential “phenological mismatch” of earlier breeding conflicting with other migratory temporal and spatial demands and with potential changes in primary productivity in Arctic environs, is an emerging challenge.  Our data reveal a pattern of earlier and earlier nest initiation for several species tied to both warming and snow/ice disappearance in the spring.  How best to conserve these and other Arctic wildlife remains unclear.  One option is to protect very large areas from development as buffers to changing conditions, and opportunities to do so exist in the National Petroleum Reserve in so-called Special Areas.  The Teshekpuk Lake Special area is one such opportunity essential to migratory wildlife.