Whither the Arctic Ocean? Research, Knowledge Needs, and Development en Route to the New Arctic

Climate change in the Arctic Ocean has stirred a remarkable surge of interest and concerns. We are seeing a continuous string of reports about the amazing rapidity of physical, chemical, ecological, and economic changes throughout the expanse of the Arctic. This book draws its content from the fact that the consequences of the changing Arctic are not restricted to the Arctic itself, but concern everybody in the Northern Hemisphere, ranging as they do from weather extremes to resource availability, food security, political disputes, economy, and sociology. The challenge is to comprehend the extent of these consequences, which necessitates a multi- and transdisciplinary understanding to arrive at knowledge-based ecosystem and resource management—the essential precondition of any approach to a sustainable future.

Leading international experts from a plethora of science fields and the entire pan-Arctic region provide their specific takes on the development of the Arctic Ocean, taking care to ensure that essays are written in ways that do not exclude non-experts. Multi- and transdisciplinarity can only be achieved when communication and outreach is not tribal in nature. The recurrent guiding theme throughout the book is the rhetorical question “Whither the Arctic Ocean?” In concert, the essays synthesize the current state of scientific knowledge to gauge how climate change may impact on the Arctic Ocean and adjacent continents. How can and should we prepare for the imminent future that is already lapping at the threshold of the commons? The outcome of this multi- and transdisciplinary endeavor is not the individual perspective of each contribution, but what comes into being across the entire suite of essays. En route to a near future that will encompass both the probable and surprises, this book attempts to conjure a multidimensional space in which a sustainable future must be brought into being. BORRAR