ACCESS
Arctic Climate Change Economy and Society
Climate change is strongly impacting both marine ecosystems and human activities in the
Arctic, which in turn has important socio-economic implications for Europe. ACCESS will
make 30 years projections based on climate change scenarios for assessing the evolution
of human activities such as marine transportation, fisheries, oil and gas extraction in the
Arctic with special attention dedicated to environmental sensitivities and sustainability.
Understanding the socio-economic impacts of these changes along with their influence on
Arctic Governance, are key areas of research within ACCESS. |
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The Arctic has experienced substantial changes
in recent years. These are most likely caused
by a combination of natural variability of the
high latitude climate system and anthropogenic
changes. They include changes in the radiation
balance, in atmospheric and oceanic heat transports
and in feedbacks of the air-sea-ice-ocean
coupled system linked to a thinning and shrinking
Arctic sea-ice cover. | Thus ACCESS activities encompass an assessment
of climate model results regarding
their representation of sea-ice, ocean and
atmospheric parameters, their seasonal and
inter-annual variability and their trends for
the next 30 years. With the reduction of seaice
ahead, a strong increase in ship traffic in
the Arctic can be expected. |
ACCESS dedicates
an important effort to the potential impacts
shipping activities might have on the sensitive
marine environment, including air pollution
and long range transport of pollutants by the
atmospheric circulation, soot and black carbon
deposition on sea-ice, oil spill and ballasting ship
tanks in the Arctic Ocean. ACCESS is focusing on
enhancing knowledge related to bio-economic and socio-economic aspects of fish resources
and aquaculture in the context of climate change
in the Arctic. It is the aim of ACCESS to assess
the opportunities and multiple risks related to oil
and gas extraction in the Arctic Ocean, to highlight
potential environmental pressures, provide
pathways for technological, legal and institutional
solutions and to analyse the socio-economic
impacts of resource extraction activity on
European, world markets and societies. ACCESS
gathers the expertise from 28 partners across
Europe including a substantial involvement from
the private sector. A key objective of ACCESS is
to point out governance options in the context
of climate change and the envisioned human
activities' increase in the economic sectors mentioned
above. The wide range of existing legislative
instruments, conventions, agreements at
national and international level, provide a complex
system of regulation in an area requiring
special integrated overview. ACCESS is uniquely
positioned to identify lacunae and to offer strategic
policy options for the medium and long
term future in the context of climate change and
the Integrated Maritime Policy. |
Modelling activities of the ACCESS project are
intended to estimate and interpret the impacts
of climate change on human activities in the
Arctic Ocean and vice versa. Modelling activities
importantly cross all aspects of the ACCESS project
to deliver practical policy and infrastructure
options for responding to the rapidly changing
Arctic Ocean. Ecosystem Based Management
(EBM) in particular and Marine Spatial Planning
(MSP) in general are key integration tools for
ACCESS. EBM and MSP are the links that relate
the basic research components of ACCESS.
Monitoring activities for long-range and longterm
observations of the Arctic Ocean including
in-situ and remote sensing observations of the
Atmosphere, Sea-Ice and Ocean, are a major
development for the ACCESS project. |
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