|
Arctic Strategy And Environmental Governance
Arctic strategy and Environmental Governance was not of global concern when Environmental politics began to emerge in the 1960s. It was Mikhail Gorbachev’s Murmansk Initiative, Murmansk speech in 1987, towards the end of the Cold War, that sowed the basis for a co-management of the Arctic. It also introduced a focus for the first time on environmental cooperation. This, in turn, inspired the 1991 Arctic Environmental Protection Strategy and the 1996 Arctic Council. Principal Arctic states’ engagement in the Arctic has been on the rise since the turn of the 21st century. This led to the publication of a multitude of reports and policy strategies aimed at both defending the principal state's interests in the region and seeking collaboration from other nations to address the growing environmental threat. It represents the dichotomy opened by climate change between consequential natural dangers and the rise of new geopolitical and economic opportunities. Historical backgro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Environmental Politics
Environmental politics designate both the politics about the environmentAndrew Dobson, ''Environmental Politics: A Very Short Introduction'', Oxford University Press, 2016 (). and an academic field of study focused on three core components:Carter, Neil. 2007. ''The Politics of the Environment: Ideas, Activism, Policy'', 2nd ed. New York: Cambridge University Press. * The study of political theories and ideas related to the environment; * The examination of the environmental stances of both mainstream political parties and environmental social movements; and * The analysis of public policymaking and implementation affecting the environment, at multiple geo-political levels. Neil Carter, in his foundational text ''Politics of the Environment'' (2009), suggests that ''environmental'' politics is distinct in at least two ways: first, "it has a primary concern with the relationship between human society and the natural world" (page 3); and second, "unlike most other single iss ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United Nations Framework Convention On Climate Change
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is the UN process for negotiating an agreement to limit dangerous climate change. It is an international treaty among countries to combat "dangerous human interference with the climate system". The main way to do this is limiting the increase in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. It was signed in 1992 by 154 states at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), informally known as the Earth Summit, held in Rio de Janeiro. The treaty entered into force on 21 March 1994. "UNFCCC" is also the name of the Secretariat charged with supporting the operation of the convention, with offices on the UN Campus in Bonn, Germany. The convention's main objective is explained in Article 2. It is the "stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic .e., human-causedinterference with the climate system". The treaty calls for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Permafrost
Permafrost () is soil or underwater sediment which continuously remains below for two years or more; the oldest permafrost has been continuously frozen for around 700,000 years. Whilst the shallowest permafrost has a vertical extent of below a meter (3 ft), the deepest is greater than . Similarly, the area of individual permafrost zones may be limited to narrow mountain summits or extend across vast Arctic regions. The ground beneath glaciers and ice sheets is not usually defined as permafrost, so on land, permafrost is generally located beneath a so-called active layer of soil which freezes and thaws depending on the season. Around 15% of the Northern Hemisphere or 11% of the global surface is underlain by permafrost, covering a total area of around . This includes large areas of Alaska, Canada, Greenland, and Siberia. It is also located in high mountain regions, with the Tibetan Plateau being a prominent example. Only a minority of permafrost exists in the Southern Hemi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blue Ocean Event
Sea ice in the Arctic region has declined in recent decades in area and volume due to climate change. It has been melting more in summer than it refreezes in winter. Global warming, caused by greenhouse gas forcing is responsible for the decline in Arctic sea ice. The decline of sea ice in the Arctic has been accelerating during the early twenty-first century, with a decline rate of 4.7% per decade (it has declined over 50% since the first satellite records). Summertime sea ice will likely cease to exist sometime during the 21st century. The region is at its warmest in at least 4,000 years. Furthermore, the Arctic-wide melt season has lengthened at a rate of five days per decade (from 1979 to 2013), dominated by a later autumn freeze-up. The IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (2021) stated that Arctic sea ice area will likely drop below 1 million km2 in at least some Septembers before 2050.Fox-Kemper, B., H.T. Hewitt, C. Xiao, G. Aðalgeirsdóttir, S.S. Drijfhout, T.L. Edwards, N.R. Go ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arctic Ocean
The Arctic Ocean is the smallest and shallowest of the world's five oceanic divisions. It spans an area of approximately and is the coldest of the world's oceans. The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) recognizes it as an ocean, although some oceanographers call it the Arctic Mediterranean Sea. It has also been described as an estuary of the Atlantic Ocean. It is also seen as the northernmost part of the all-encompassing world ocean. The Arctic Ocean includes the North Pole region in the middle of the Northern Hemisphere and extends south to about 60°N. The Arctic Ocean is surrounded by Eurasia and North America, and the borders follow topographic features: the Bering Strait on the Pacific side and the Greenland Scotland Ridge on the Atlantic side. It is mostly covered by sea ice throughout the year and almost completely in winter. The Arctic Ocean's surface temperature and salinity vary seasonally as the ice cover melts and freezes; its salinity is the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Biodiversity
Biodiversity is the variability of life, life on Earth. It can be measured on various levels. There is for example genetic variability, species diversity, ecosystem diversity and Phylogenetics, phylogenetic diversity. Diversity is not distributed evenly on Earth. It is greater in the tropics as a result of the warm climate and high primary productivity in the region near the equator. Tropical forest ecosystems cover less than one-fifth of Earth's terrestrial area and contain about 50% of the world's species. There are latitudinal gradients in species diversity for both marine and terrestrial taxa. Since Abiogenesis, life began on Earth, six major mass extinctions and several minor events have led to large and sudden drops in biodiversity. The Phanerozoic aeon (the last 540 million years) marked a rapid growth in biodiversity via the Cambrian explosion. In this period, the majority of Multicellular organism, multicellular Phylum, phyla first appeared. The next 400 mil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Greenland Ice Cap
The Greenland ice sheet is an ice sheet which forms the second largest body of ice in the world. It is an average of thick and over thick at its maximum. It is almost long in a north–south direction, with a maximum width of at a latitude of 77°N, near its northern edge. The ice sheet covers , around 80% of the surface of Greenland, or about 12% of the area of the Antarctic ice sheet. The term 'Greenland ice sheet' is often shortened to GIS or GrIS in scientific literature. Greenland has had major glaciers and ice caps for at least 18 million years, but a single ice sheet first covered most of the island some 2.6 million years ago. Since then, it has both grown and contracted significantly. The oldest known ice on Greenland is about 1 million years old. Due to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, the ice sheet is now the warmest it has been in the past 1000 years, and is losing ice at the fastest rate in at least the past 12,000 years. Every summer, parts of the surfa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arctic Climate Impact Assessment
The Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA) is a study describing the ongoing climate change in the Arctic and its consequences: rising temperatures, loss of sea ice, unprecedented melting of the Greenland ice sheet, and many impacts on ecosystems, animals, and people. The ACIA is the first comprehensively researched, fully referenced, and independently reviewed evaluation of Arctic climate change and its impacts for the region and for the world. The project was guided by the intergovernmental Arctic Council and the non-governmental International Arctic Science Committee. Three hundred scientists participated in the study over a span of three years. The 140-page synthesis report ''Impacts of a Warming Arctic'' was released in November 2004, and the scientific report later in 2005. The ACIA Secretariat is located at the International Arctic Research Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Subsequent studies A''State of the Arctic Report 2006'' by the National Oceanic and At ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sea Ice
Sea ice arises as seawater freezes. Because ice is less density, dense than water, it floats on the ocean's surface (as does fresh water ice). Sea ice covers about 7% of the Earth's surface and about 12% of the world's oceans. Much of the world's sea ice is enclosed within the polar ice packs in the Earth's polar regions: the Arctic ice pack of the Arctic Ocean and the Antarctic ice pack of the Southern Ocean. Polar packs undergo a significant yearly cycling in surface extent, a natural process upon which depends the Arctic ecology, including the Arctic sea ice ecology and history, ocean's ecosystems. Due to the action of winds, currents and temperature fluctuations, sea ice is very dynamic, leading to a wide variety of ice types and features. Sea ice may be contrasted with icebergs, which are chunks of ice shelf, ice shelves or glaciers that Ice calving, calve into the ocean. Depending on location, sea ice expanses may also incorporate icebergs. General features and dynamics ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arctic Ice Thickness
The Arctic (; . ) is the polar regions of Earth, polar region of Earth that surrounds the North Pole, lying within the Arctic Circle. The Arctic region, from the IERS Reference Meridian travelling east, consists of parts of northern Norway (Nordland, Troms, Finnmark, Svalbard and Jan Mayen), northernmost Sweden (Västerbotten, Norrbotten and Lapland (Sweden), Lappland), northern Finland (North Ostrobothnia, Kainuu and Lapland (Finland), Lappi), Russia (Murmansk Oblast, Murmansk, Siberia, Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Nenets Okrug, Novaya Zemlya), the United States (Alaska), Canada (Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut), Danish Realm (Greenland), and northern Iceland (Grímsey and Kolbeinsey), along with the Arctic Ocean and adjacent seas. Land within the Arctic region has seasonally varying cryosphere, snow and ice cover, with predominantly treeless permafrost under the tundra. Arctic seas contain seasonal sea ice in many places. The Arctic region is a unique area among Earth's ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Climate Change
Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in Global surface temperature, global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate system. Climate variability and change, Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to Earth's climate. The current rise in global temperatures is Scientific consensus on climate change, driven by human activities, especially fossil fuel burning since the Industrial Revolution. Fossil fuel use, Deforestation and climate change, deforestation, and some Greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture, agricultural and Environmental impact of concrete, industrial practices release greenhouse gases. These gases greenhouse effect, absorb some of the heat that the Earth Thermal radiation, radiates after it warms from sunlight, warming the lower atmosphere. Carbon dioxide, the primary gas driving global warming, Carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere, has increased in concentratio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
