An interdisciplinary investigation into scenarios of national and intl conflicts in the Svalbard zone under a changing climate in the Arctic

Climate change in the Arctic is occurring at a rapid rate. In Longyearbyen, Svalbard, the world?s northernmost city, deadly avalanches and permafrost thaw-induced architectural destruction has disrupted local governance norms and responsibilities. In the North Atlantic, the warming ocean temperatures have contributed to a rapid expansion of the mackerel stock which has spurred both geo-political tensions but also tensions at the science-policy interface of fish quota setting. These local climate-induced changes have created a domino-like chain reaction that intensifies through time as a warming Arctic penetrates deeper into responsibilities of governing institutions and science institutions. As the global climate warms, changes in the underlying ecology of the planet have the potential for positive and negative, domino-like effects on society. Seen from an academic perspective, climate change cascading effects gives a perfect opportunity for scientists in different fields to join forces and attempt to document, describe and reflect these effects. The first goal of REGIMES was to predict the abundance and distribution of marine fisheries resources based on recently published IPCC climate scenarios, also to project the catch potential and assess the social-economic impacts of such changes on the fishing sector. So far, we have refined the models and produced some results, especially for cod fisheries, the most important species both ecologically and economically. The next goal was to collect social data from Longyearbyen stakeholders through in-person interviews to inform our stakeholder-driven scenarios of vulnerability and adaptive capacity. We then integrated these views in our climate narratives in the work package ARCTIC CLIMATE in SOCIETY. We have also interviewed a number of people from the tourism, fishing, industry, and governance sector living and working in Svalbard about their perceptions of vulnerabilities. In addition, we have observed and analyzed the negotiations towards a legally binding agreement on biodiversity protection in areas beyond national jurisdiction, given the adjacency of Svalbard to the Central Arctic Ocean - a future area beyond national jurisdiction. During these negotiations, we have also interviewed international negotiators and NGO representatives on these topics. A key aspect of the work in this section was to analyze indicators of conflict as a result of changes to ecosystem services because of climate change, especially in terms of model predictions of changing fish distributions and species. The work has resulted in a number of media appearances, primarily linked to the movement of snow crab into the Svalbard Fisheries Protection Zone. In face with the increasing uncertain futures of climate-induced changes, policy choices also increase revealing a type of ?snowballing? of possible futures facing decision-makers. We introduce a portmanteau-inspired concept called ?The Melting Snowball Effect? that encompasses the chain reaction (?domino effect?) that increases the number of plausible scenarios (?snowball effect?) with climate change (melting snow, ice and thawing permafrost). We demonstrate the use of ?The Melting Snowball Effect? as a heuristic to create plausible scenarios for deliberative discussions among academics, citizens and policymakers. During the project period, we have had a number of workshops with youth, parents and grandparents, assessing their perceptions of climate change and adaptive capacity. We observe generational differences in discussing future climate scenarios, particularly that the mixed group where three generations were represented had the most diverse and thorough deliberations.

We feel that our biggest contribution to society in this project, is our attention to our academic transdisciplinary approach through the creation of interdisciplinary future climate vignettes, or short narratives. Through this approach, we were able to capture the interrelatedness of our ecological-social-economic-geo-political perspectives of future ecosystem services in the North Atlantic and Svalbard Zone. We intend to continue this method in future project proposals, and look forward to disseminating the paper ?The Melting Snowball Effect? to regional and national leaders during an invited talk at the Arctic Circle conference in October 2019 and at the Arctic Frontiers conference in 2020.

REGIMES will combine ecosystem models to create ecological scenarios of marine ecosystem services and marine resource distribution in the Svalbard region within the Arctic Circle. These scenarios will then be presented and discussed with stakeholders and Norwegian high school students. Nationally, commercial fishers that have the SFPZ as their primary area of harvest will participate in stakeholder driven workshops to determine how the ecosystem service scenarios will affect them in terms of conflict and management. These workshops will develop scenarios on the level of vulnerability and adaptive capacity nationally and internationally. REGIMES will then investigate what stakeholders are gaining or losing in terms of resources, both regionally and nationally, and the effects from a local stakeholder perspective. This will be based on a combining the modeling- and stakeholder perception scenarios and developing models of sustainable resources and benefits from the SFPZ such as catches, environmental protection, profits and employment. REGIMES will then also develop sustainable management scenarios based on these results and comment on their perception of the vulnerability for conflict around the political and legal topic of the SFPZ, the adaptive capacity, and future sustainable management strategies. At the international level, representatives of the Norwegian negotiating partners in the North-East Atlantic will participate in workshops. The integration of Norwegian high schools will be a central dissemination activity from the first project month and highlights cross-cutting and cross-generational learning and networking within Norway. A collaboration among REGIMES scientists, engaged and award-winning high school teachers and their students will develop a role-playing digital game. In addition, media students will use budding journalistic skills to disseminate REGIMES project results and stakeholder response from the student point of view.