The future of The Arctic

In my last post (which post I hear you say? You haven’t read it? Well do so NOW!) I described the effects of Aerosols on the Arctic regions, what I failed to touch upon was how such effects will influence the Arctic in the region.

Law and Stohl (2007) conclude their paper by exploring these future changes. It has been suggested, by 2040, Arctic summers will be ice free (Roach, 2006). Such changes could have huge implications on the distribution of aerosols pollution. Firstly, a greater area of open ocean could result in greater production of natural Sulphate aerosols. Furthermore ship traffic, within the Arctic region, can be held responsible for rising levels of summer pollution. As volumes of summer sea ice decrease (due to localised pollution and warming) larger areas of the sea become open to shipping transport, resulting in the deposition of soot. Thus, reducing albedo, creating a positive feedback system and further ice melt (I will cover the effects of black carbon deposition at a later date do sit tight!).

The Arctic dome is also anticipated to weaken in the future as regional temperatures rise. Consequences of this may include increased levels of pollution from southern Asia, from which pollutants are currently too warm and moist to preach this barrier. The paper proposes that such movement of pollutants could be facilitated by an “upward trend in the North Atlantic Oscillation”. This factor needs to be considered when implementing policies (for reducing long range pollution) in the Arctic, as the potential geographical sources, of pollution, will increase with rising temperatures (Law and Stohl, 2007).

Thoughts:

Many of these feedback systems created by pollutants, such of aerosols, will only intensify in the future. As always uncertainty must be accounted for in climate change predictions, but the evidence for melting Arctic sea ice is currently present and, surely, this will continue as feedback systems intensify.

In order to combat these changes, the concentration of atmospheric pollutants need to decrease. This should not be purely focused in north Eurasia (the source of the majority of current long range pollution in the Arctic) but include southern latitudes also. The reduction of pollutants, especially short lived pollutants such as black carbon, could dramatically decrease rates of ice loss in the Arctic. It is important not to just focus on the famous GHGs as other pollutants are having as detrimental influences on the Arctic and must also be reduced to prevent large scale global warming.