# Facets of Arctic change

Jean-Claude Gascard, Anne-Sophie Crépin, Michael Karcher, Oran R. Young

► To cite this version:

Jean-Claude Gascard, Anne-Sophie Crépin, Michael Karcher, Oran R. Young. Facets of Arctic change. AMBIO: A Journal of Environment and Society, 2017, 46 (S3), pp.s339 - s340. 10.1007/s13280-017-0952-4. hal-01644615

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# Facets of Arctic Change

Jean-Claude Gascard, Anne-Sophie Crépin, Michael Karcher, Oran R. Young

Published online: 26 October 2017

This special issue highlights results from the project *Arctic Climate Change Economy and Society* (ACCESS, 2011–2015) supported within the Ocean of Tomorrow call of the European Union’s 7th framework programme. Focusing on the marine Arctic, ACCESS investigated climate impacts on marine transportation, seafood production, and the extraction of hydrocarbons up to 2050. The project dedicated particular attention to environmental sensitivities, sustainability, governance, strategic policy options, and management support.

A tight collaboration between experts with multiple disciplinary skills was necessary to derive and synthesize findings, to obtain an overall picture of the interactions between the different elements of the biophysical and socioeconomic systems and to evaluate climate change impacts in the Arctic Ocean. The ACCESS project convened around 100 researchers from 27 different partner institutions in ten different European countries. Researchers’ disciplinary backgrounds covered a wide range of natural and social sciences, including economics, social anthropology, systems ecology, marine biology, climatology and law; they came from universities, national research centres and small and medium enterprises. Stakeholders from local and indigenous populations, industry and non-governmental organizations were also involved. Necessarily, the project had to employ manifold approaches and methods. Participants gathered environmental observations from satellites, buoys, temporary observatories stationed on drifting ice platforms, and measurements of chemical and noise pollution. Societal and economic information was collected from databanks, through semi-structured interviews, and behavioural experiments. ACCESS researchers used a variety of models to simulate and better understand the past, and

evaluate expected changes in natural and socioeconomic systems under future conditions; they also performed controlled sensitivity experiments of the natural and human systems. New methods and tools were developed such as a marine spatial planning tool, an integrated ecosystem-based management framework, and numerical modelling approaches to improve ship routing in ice-covered waters or to optimize observational networks. In addition, the project hosted meetings with stakeholders and carried out various dissemination activities, including two summer schools to train young scientists in cross-sectoral approaches, workshops, and a series of newsletters and policy briefs. A website is maintained beyond the lifetime of the project, to serve as a hub for project-related information and the projects’ products (www.access-eu.org).

We started synthesizing results from ACCESS 2 years after the start of the project through cross-sectoral sessions organized during the annual general assembly meetings and meetings including researchers from different disciplines organized back-to-back with the summer schools held in 2013 and 2014. Communication and trust were essential ingredients for the success of such a large and complex research project. Barriers to communication included physical distance and different spoken and scientific languages, not only among participants from different countries but also among different disciplines and scientific cultures. Ensuring a true collaborative spirit required patience and open-mindedness among all participants. In addition to the participating scientists, an advisory board, including Adele Airoldi, Inuuteq Holm Olsen, Hannu Hallinen, Hajo Eicken, and guest editor Oran Young, provided valuable advice at all stages of the project dealing with science, politics, and indigenous peoples’ perspective.
ACCESS produced more than 100 scientific deliverables between March 2011 and February 2015. Most of the ACCESS results are included in this special issue or in other scientific peer-reviewed publications which are cited in this issue.

We hope you will enjoy the reading!

**Acknowledgements** The research leading to this special issue has received funding from the European Union under Grant Agreement n° 265863 – ACCESS (http://www.access-eu.org) - within the Ocean of Tomorrow call of the European Commission Seventh Framework Programme.

**Open Access** This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.

## AUTHOR BIOGRAPHIES

**Jean-Claude Gascard** (✉) is emeritus research director at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in France. He is a physical oceanographer working at the University Pierre & Marie Curie in Paris within the LOCEAN laboratory. He coordinated major EU polar projects such as DAMOCLES (Developing Arctic modelling and Observing Capabilities for Long term Environmental Studies 2005–2010) during the International Polar Year (IPY 2007–2008) and more recently ACCESS (Arctic Climate Change, Economy and Society 2010–2015). He was past chair of the Arctic Ocean Sciences Board. His main interest is deep ocean convection, thermohaline circulation and polar oceans (the Arctic Ocean in particular), sea-ice and brines formation.

Address: LOCEAN, University Pierre et Marie Curie, 4 Place Jussieu, 75005 Paris, France.

e-mail: jga@locean-ipsl.upmc.fr

**Anne-Sophie Crépin** is an associate professor, the deputy director of the Beijer Institute of Ecological Economics at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and member of the strategic advisory board at the Stockholm Resilience Centre at Stockholm University in Sweden. She holds a PhD in economics from Stockholm University. Her research interests include the complex links between biosphere and

economic dynamics with focus on regime shifts, sustainability and resilience.

Address: The Beijer Institute of Ecological Economics, The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Lilla Frescativägen 4, Box 50005, 104 05 Stockholm, Sweden.

Address: The Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University, Kräftriket 2 B, 10691 Stockholm, Sweden.

e-mail: annesophie.crepin@beijer.kva.se

**Michael Karcher** is physical oceanographer, who received his PhD degree in 1994 at the University of Hamburg, Germany. He has worked in a large number of science projects dealing with the climate system of the northern hemisphere, focusing on numerical modelling of sea ice and ocean, and more recently also with interdisciplinary aspects of climate change in the Arctic. He currently works as a research scientist at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, Bremerhaven, and as a director and researcher at the scientific company Ocean Atmosphere Systems GmbH, Hamburg. Michael Karcher acted as the assistant coordinator for the project ACCESS.

Address: Ocean Atmosphere Systems GmbH, Tewesweg 4, 20249 Hamburg, Germany.

Address: Alfred-Wegener-Institut Helmholtz-Zentrum für Polar- und Meeresforschung, Bussestrasse 24, 27570 Bremerhaven, Germany.
e-mail: michael@oasys-research.de; Michael.Karcher@awi.de

**Oran R. Young** is Professor Emeritus at the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management University of California, Santa Barbara, USA. With a background in political economy, he is a long time student of the creation and performance of governance systems. His applied work focuses on issues relating to the polar regions, the ocean and the atmosphere. In recent years, he has engaged also in research comparing environmental governance in China and the Unites States. Dr. Young has held many positions involving Arctic affairs, including vice president of the international Arctic Science Committee and chair of the Board of Governors of the University of the Arctic. He has been an active member of the global change research community, serving among other roles as chair of the scientific committee of the international human dimensions programme on global environmental change. He is the author of many books and articles including most recently "Governing complex systems: social capital for the anthropocene (2017)".

Address: Bren School, University of California, Office Bren hall 4032, Santa Barbara, USA.

e-mail: oran.young@gmail.com

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