Abstract
The global implications of a rapidly diminishing Cryosphere urge a human-centered framework to address the sustainability and equity concerns arising from impacts of cryospheric change and economic development. This more inclusive paradigm would enable research and policy approaches premised on causalities, historical injustices, and needs for enhancing the resilience of and for indigenous peoples and smallholders. This framework will need to reconsider what human dimensions can be added to current biophysical monitoring, including evaluations of infrastructure, land and marine resources, institutions, and policies. It should facilitate the sharing of data and lived experiences of people affected by and interacting with social-ecological systems with less sea ice, glaciers, and snow cover.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Explore related subjects
Discover the latest articles and news from researchers in related subjects, suggested using machine learning.Notes
One Gigaton (Gt) is equal to 1000 km3 of ice. As water it would fill about 400,000 Olympic swimming pools.
References
Carey M, Baraer M, Mark BG, French A, Bury J, Young KR, McKenzie JM (2014) Toward hydro-social modeling: Merging human variables and the social sciences with climate-glacier runoff models (Santa River, Peru). J Hydrol 518:60–70
Huntington HP et al (2019) Climate change in context: putting people first in the Arctic. Reg Environ Change 19:1217–1223
Inuit Circumpolar Council-Alaska (2015) Alaskan Inuit food security conceptual framework: how to assess the Arctic from an Inuit perspective. Inuit Circumpolar Council-Alaska, Anchorage, AK
Jansen E et al (2020) Past perspectives on the present era of abrupt Arctic climate change. Nat Clim Chang 10:714–721. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-020-0860-7
Johnson N, Behe C, Danielsen F, Krummel E-M, Nickels S, Pulsifer PL (2016) Community-Based Monitoring and Indigenous Knowledge in a Changing Arctic: A Review for the Sustaining Arctic Observing Networks. Sustaining Arctic Observing Networks. https://iccalaska.org/wp-icc/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Community-Based-Monitoring-and-Indigenous-Knowledge-in-a-Changing-Arctic_web.pdf
Landrum L, Holland MM (2020) Extremes become routine in an emerging new Arctic. Nat Clim Change. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-020-0892-z
Leichenko RM, O’Brien KL (2019) Climate and society: transforming the future. Polity, Cambridge
Melia N, Haines K, Hawkins E (2016) Sea ice decline and 21st century trans-Arctic shipping routes. Geophys Res Lett 43:9720–9728. https://doi.org/10.1002/2016GL069315
Norström AV et al (2020) Principles for knowledge co-production in sustainability research. Nat Sustain 3:182–190. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-019-0448-2
Portner H-O et al (eds) (In press) IPCC Special report on the ocean and the cryosphere in a changing climate. IPCC, Geneva, Switzerland
Postigo JC (2021) Navigating capitalist expansion and climate change in pastoral social-ecological systems: impacts, vulnerability and decision-making. Curr Opin Environ Sustain 52:68–74. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2021.07.002
Qin Y et al (2020) Agricultural risks from changing snowmelt. Nat Clim Chang 10:459–465. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-020-0746-8
Rasul G, Molden D (2019) The global social and economic consequences of mountain cryospheric change. Front Environ Sci. https://doi.org/10.3389/fenvs.2019.00091
Rosen J (2016) Arctic dreams. Nature 532:296–299
Teufel B, Sushama L (2019) Abrupt changes across the Arctic permafrost region endanger northern development. Nat Clim Change 9:858–862. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-019-0614-6
The Committee for Greenlandic Mineral Resources to the Benefit of Society (2014) To the benefit of greenland. University of Greenland and University of Copenhagen, Manutooq and Copenhagen
Thomas K et al (2019) Explaining differential vulnerability to climate change: a social science review. Wires Clim Change 10:e565. https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.565
Thompson LG, Davis ME, Mosley-Thompson E, Porter SE, Valdivia Corrales G, Shuman CA, Tucker CJ (2021) The impacts of warming on rapidly retreating high-altitude, low-latitude glaciers and ice core-derived climate records. Glob Planet Change 203:103538. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloplacha.2021.103538
Zemp M et al (2019) Global glacier mass changes and their contributions to sea-level rise from 1961 to 2016. Nature 568:382–386
Acknowledgements
We thank Blanca León, Anna S. Mueller, Laura Landrum, and Joan Strassmann for valuable assistance and feedback.
Funding
Julio C. Postigo’s work is supported by the National Science Foundation award #2022644. Kenneth Young received research funds from the National Science Foundation, through grants #s1010381, 1333141 and 1617429.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Handled by Alexander Gonzalez Flor, University of the Philippines Open University, Philippines.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Postigo, J.C., Young, K.R. Preparing for a diminished cryosphere. Sustain Sci 16, 2147–2150 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-021-01023-9
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-021-01023-9