ARCTIC: Ice-free Summer & more – 10th Dec 2024

Góðan daginn from BA! This is the Rorshok Arctic Update from the 10th of December twenty twenty-four. A quick summary of what’s going down North of the Arctic Circle!

The future of the Arctic Ocean is looking troubled with the publication of new research on Tuesday the 3rd in the journal Nature Communications, which shows that within three years, the Arctic Ocean could have its first summer without sea ice.

Researchers Céline Heuzé & Alexandra Jahn, used over 300 computer models to predict the future of ice conditions in the Arctic based on recent global warming rates. In the worst-case scenario, the Arctic Ocean will start seeing ice-free summer conditions as early as twenty twenty-seven. Previous estimates have placed ice-free summers as being decades away but recent spikes in global warming and carbon emissions have shown that unless drastic action is taken soon, the Arctic will be an ice-free region.

To know more about this story, check out the Rorshok Ocean Update with the link in the show notes!

How is the current state of ice in the Arctic ocean? The US National Snow and Ice Data Center published their newest sea ice update on Wednesday the 4th, and it looks like this will be a difficult winter for sea ice. The November ice level was the fourth lowest on record. Winter is supposed to be when the coldest weather arrives and the sea refreezes after a warm year, but the ice is just not appearing like it used to.

Canada’s Hudson Bay, a major habitat for polar bears, arctic foxes, seals and many other species which live on the sea ice, is completely ice-free. This is an unprecedented situation for Canada’s Arctic as the predictions of an ice-free Arctic slowly turn into reality.

Next up, a significant contributor to environmental change in the Arctic is the increasing number of wildfires. Copernicus, the EU’s environmental monitoring network, released its global wildfire review on Thursday the 5th, showing that twenty twenty-four was a hard year for fire damage in the Arctic. Canada recorded its second most intense wildfire season in history, only behind last year’s. Russia’s Arctic also suffered its highest wildfire emissions on record, after Siberia caught ablaze in July. Overall, carbon emissions as a result of wildfires across the Arctic were the fourth highest measured after twenty twenty, twenty nineteen, and two thousand four.

In other news, Russia is closing in on a decades-long mission to address Cold War-era pollution in its Arctic region. On Wednesday the 4th, Rosatom, the state nuclear corporation, announced the removal of the final batch of highly radioactive uranium fuel from Gremikha, a remote north-eastern Siberian site once used to dismantle nuclear submarines. Now, only one major nuclear dump remains in the Arctic: Andreeva Bay in Zapadnaya Litsa, near the Norwegian border.

Rosatom confirmed that half of its waste has already been removed for reprocessing. Once completed, this cleanup will mark a significant milestone in removing the environmental and health hazards left behind by decades of military activity.

Russia has plenty to celebrate this week. As reported by shipping news agency gCaptain on Wednesday the 4th, the country’s newest icebreaker has been launched. The Yakutiya is Russia’s eighth nuclear icebreaker and has made its icebreaker fleet the largest in history, surpassing Russia’s own record-breaking fleet in the nineteen nineties.

However, they aren’t stopping there, with two more nuclear icebreakers under construction. Still, the oldest vessels in this fleet will reach their decommission stage by twenty thirty, meaning Russia’s record is only going to last for the next few years.

In the face of Russia’s growing power in the Arctic, the Canadian government announced a swathe of new Arctic policies on Friday the 6th. Among these policies are the appointment of a new Arctic ambassador, the opening of consulates in Alaska and Greenland, and a focus on cooperating with the US more than ever before to keep the North American Arctic secure. The policy announcement is designed to counter Russia, China, and climate change, which Canada considers the three most serious threats to keeping the Arctic safe.

Canada is also investing in its fisheries industry in northern Quebec. In an announcement made on Thursday the 5th by Fisheries and Oceans Canada, the Canadian government announced a $20 million US dollar investment in the economic development of small fisheries across the north coast. The money will be used for a number of important projects, such as the construction of a new fishing harbor in Natashquan and the maintenance of existing harbors in other Inuit communities. This investment takes Canada’s fishery development spend to almost $400 million US dollars, as the government tries to secure sustainable growth and economic prosperity for the many small coastal communities across Canada’s north.

Meanwhile, Alaskan prosperity is on the mind of the outgoing Biden administration in the US. On Wednesday the 4th, the Department of Commerce announced almost $100 million dollars in funding to support state and tribal projects to conserve and restore salmon on the West Coast and Alaska. The declining health of salmon populations has been one of the key drivers of economic and food insecurities in Alaska in recent years, with record-low catches being reported in twenty twenty-four. The projects receiving funding will specifically restore the habitats and breeding grounds of Pacific salmon in a way that improves ecosystem resilience to climate hazards.

American salmon are being protected, but whales in Iceland are under threat. Bjarni Benediktsson, Iceland’s caretaker Prime Minister, announced on Thursday the 5th that he has issued a five-year license to Iceland’s whaling companies to hunt minke and endangered fin whales.

This decision sparked fury across Iceland. A joint statement by Icelandic environmental advocacy groups responded to the news by calling it an outrageous abuse of power. The statement noted that last week’s election overwhelmingly voted for anti-whaling politicians, so this decision has been made without the mandate of the people.

Benediktsson’s term will end as soon as coalition talks are completed, meaning that in the final days of his leadership, he has committed to five more years of controversial whale hunting in Iceland.

There’s better news over in Norway. On Sunday the 8th, the Norwegian Sami Parliament announced it has been allocated an additional $5 million US dollars for next year’s budget by the Norwegian government. This comes as a great relief to the Sami Parliament, which had initially had its annual funding cut in the September budget draft. The Norwegian Socialist Party allied itself with the Sami Parliament to negotiate with the government and succeeded in delivering a much-needed budget boost for supporting the Sami community.

Norway can certainly afford giving a bit of cash away, after its sovereign wealth fund hit a record high on Friday the 6th, peaking at a value of $1.8 trillion US dollars. The public investment fund, the world’s largest, has doubled in value in just five years as the world has turned to Norway for oil and gas imports instead of Russia. The fund has grown so rapidly that it is four times larger than Norway’s own GDP, as the country’s initial ambition of creating a rainy-day savings fund has grown into the most successful public investment in history.

And to wrap up this edition, there’s joy in Sweden’s Arctic with the announcement of the twenty twenty-nine European Capital of Culture. Sweden’s northern city of Kiruna was granted the honor by the EU on Friday the 6th. This will be the third Arctic city to receive the title, after Norway’s Bodø in twenty twenty-four and Finland’s Oulu in twenty twenty-six. Swedish media outlet SVT reported that when Kiruna’s victory was announced both cheers and tears of joy broke out in the town hall, as the city with a history dating back 6,000 years is celebrated for its vibrant culture.

To explore what makes Kiruna so special, take a look at the link in the show notes.

Aaand that’s it for this week! Thank you for joining us!

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