Canada must get serious about Arctic science

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Canada must get serious about Arctic science

https://www.hilltimes.com/2021/11/04/canada-must-get-serious-about-arctic-science/326534

By TOM HENHEFFER      NOVEMBER 4, 2021

So far, despite all the dire warnings, the campaign promises, and the clear responsibility we hold, our country has failed to step up. 

 

[The Canadian Coast Guard Ship Louis S. St-Laurent makes an approach to the Coast Guard Cutter Healy in the Arctic Ocean. There are only a handful of ships dedicated to science in the North, and five of them belong to Arctic Research Foundation, writes its vice president, Tom Henheffer. With major gaps in our Arctic coverage, scientists struggle to understand how temperatures are changing, how sea ice is melting, and how migratory patterns have shifted. Photograph courtesy of Patrick Kelley, U.S. Coast Guard]

Canada needs to take a larger role in Arctic research.

So far, despite all the dire warnings, the campaign promises, and the clear responsibility we hold, our country has failed to step up. 

With the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) underway and a new cabinet minted after a summer of devastating fires, wild weather, and worsening health, housing and food crises in northern communities, now more than ever, is the time for action. 

For over a decade, the Arctic Research Foundation (ARF) has worked alongside northern Indigenous communities and Canada’s leading researchers to both understand and tell the stories of these changes, and their widespread damaging impacts. We see these changes in real time and work hard to help find solutions. 

The pace of change in the North is accelerating at a rate three times faster than the rest of the world. You see it in undulating roads collapsing as permafrost melts to houses at risk of falling into the sea in Tuktoyaktuk, and in shifting migratory patterns bringing southern aquatic and terrestrial wildlife higher into the Arctic. This is also impacting the way northerners, especially hunters and trappers, make their living. This, in turn, is worsening an already terrible food crisis. No part of northern living is untouched.

If the world is a coal mine, the North is its canary, and that bird is wobbling on its perch. 

But Canada’s historical lack of investment in northern science makes it hard to understand just how sick that bird is. 

There are only a handful of ships dedicated to science in the North, and five of them belong to ARF (we’re a private charitable NGO, not a government department). 

While Canada has monitoring stations in the North, they’re too few and far between. With major gaps in our Arctic coverage, scientists struggle to understand how temperatures are changing, how sea ice is melting, how migratory patterns have shifted, and many other crucial variables we need to get a full picture of what we are facing. The lack of data collected during COVID-19 has only made building this fulsome picture more difficult. 

There are only a handful of ports in the North where scientific vessels can dock, resupply and overwinter. The Canadian government plans to open a new port on Baffin Island, but there’s no guarantee this will actually happen. 

While we’re struggling to open one port, Russia just announced $300-billion for new ports and other developments in their Arctic region. Canada’s investments pale in comparison. 

When money does flow, the process of getting scientific grants in the North is arduous. To finance even short science cruises can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and getting grants for science over multiple years, which is crucial to understanding how climate is changing, is even more difficult. 

This too often creates an environment of competition between scientists and organizations when we need to be collaborating and sharing our findings to create a clear picture of the Arctic and toward a common purpose.

At present, we only have snapshots: air monitoring data here, phytoplankton research there, with a fragmented ability to stitch them into a full mosaic of understanding.

Perhaps the biggest challenge with this approach is that it forces scientific expeditions to hold community consultations in an ad hoc way, making it impossible to have meaningful, long-term co-generation of knowledge where communities can identify priorities and have a meaningful say in directing where science dollars are spent. 

It cannot be overstated how much more knowledge Indigenous locals have over even the most seasoned Arctic researchers. For reconciliation—and effective science—to happen, they need to lead the way.

In spite of these challenges, there is good, important work being done in the North. Canada has some of the best researchers in the world. The Indigenous Guardians program, which started with a grant of only $5.7-million has been a massive success, and the Liberal election platform promised to expand it (although it unfortunately didn’t go into specifics). Canada is also building two new Polar icebreakers, but they’re years away from being deployed. 

We simply cannot wait. The world is burning, and there are too many gaps in our knowledge, and too many structural problems standing in the way of solutions. The status quo cannot stand, not if we want to understand how climate change is affecting the North, and in turn get a clearer picture of how it will impact the world around us. To create effective solutions, all roads lead to a meaningful and co-operative scientific engagement in the Arctic.

There’s a simple answer (although its implementation, as all worthwhile efforts like this, will be challenging). There must be a huge investment in Arctic infrastructure and research, a revision to funding structures so they’re more appropriate for northern projects, and meaningful, ongoing consultations with Indigenous communities so northerners can determine how, where, and when science dollars are spent. Tying all this together, we need a large-scale Arctic vision and an implementation plan to ensure work is done in an effective, collaborative, and respectful way.

With a new government forming, this is our chance to become global leaders. We just need the political will to make it happen.

Tom Henheffer is vice president of the Arctic Research Foundation.