A common thread that runs through all WCS work in Arctic Alaska is the rapid onset of climate change and the subsequent impacts to wildlife.
Projections by the International Panel on Climate Change (
www.ipcc.ch) estimate global warming is occurring at nearly twice the global average in the Arctic over the past 100 years. Changes to Arctic land and seascapes are occurring at an accelerated pace, and climate models project a very different Arctic in the near future. Transformative processes now underway include recession of Arctic sea ice and increasing dominance of open water, melting of permafrost triggering complex hydrological changes, shoreline erosion and inundation of salt-water into coastal fresh-water habitats, encroachment of woody vegetation into sedge tundra dominated systems, and a drying trend (net loss in surface water) in some areas of the Arctic.
Our knowledge of how wildlife is responding to these changes is limited due to lack of on-the-ground information as well as uncertainty in existing climate models. However, some wildlife responses that are occurring or will likely occur include species range shifts (movement of boreal species into the arctic) and decoupling of phenology (e.g. change in synchrony between insect/plant emergence timing and hatch of nesting birds). There will likely be some species that benefit and some that decline in response to these climate changes. For humans, eroding shorelines already are a major problem for coastal communities of Inupiat Eskimos in Alaska, causing the imminent translocation of some (like Shishmaref) and ongoing investment into protective infrastructure in others (including Barrow).
Goals
- Work with experts and stakeholders to develop guidelines for the development of conservation strategies and land-use plans that will protect wildlife in the face of a changing climate
- Conduct focused research to understand how climate change is impacting Arctic Alaskan wildlife