University of Lapland

About: University of Lapland is a education organization based out in Rovaniemi, Finland. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Arctic & Indigenous. The organization has 665 authors who have published 1870 publications receiving 39129 citations. The organization is also known as: University of Rovaniemi & Lapin yliopisto.

Arctic climate change discourse: the contrasting politics of research agendas in the West and Russia

Abstract: In this paper we explore how Western scientific concepts and attitudes towards indigenous knowledge, as they pertain to resource management and climate change, differ from the prevailing view in modern Russia. Western indigenous leaders representing the Inuit and Saami peoples are actively engaged in the academic and political discourse surrounding climate change, whereas their Russian colleagues tend to focus more on legislation and self-determination, as a post-Soviet legacy. We contribute to the debate with data from the Nenets tundra, showing how different research has employed the three crucial Western research paradigms of climate change, wildlife management and indigenous knowledge on the ground. We suggest that the daily practice of tundra nomadism involves permanent processes of negotiating one’s position in a changing environment, which is why “adaptation” is woven into the society, and cosmology as a whole, rather than being separable into distinct “bodies” of knowledge or Western-designed categories. We argue that research agendas should be placed in their proper local and regional context, and temporal framework: for example, by collaborating with herders on the topics of weather instead of climate change, herding skills instead of wildlife management, and ways of engaging with the tundra instead of traditional ecological knowledge.

Limits and possibilities of the Arctic Council in a rapidly changing scene of Arctic governance

Abstract: In a very short time, discussions on Arctic governance have moved from being a topic of scholarly attention and NGO advocacy onto the agendas of states and of the European Union (EU). Increasingly, the various alternatives propounded by a diverse set of actors over what Arctic governance should look like appear as pre- negotiation tactics, a type of testing period before a regime change. The article examines whether the still predominant inter governmental forum, the Arctic Council, is facing a threat of being supplanted by other forms of governance. It will study how resistant the Arctic Council, and its predecessor the 1991 Arctic environmental protection strategy, are to change in order to understand whether the council could renew itself to meet future challenges. It will also examine the various proposals for Arctic governance set out by states, the EU and the region's indigenous peoples. All this will permit conclusions to be drawn on where the Arctic Council stands amid all these proposals and whether, and in what way, it should change to support more sustainable governance in the Arctic.

Ice cores from Svalbard - useful archives of past climate and pollution history

Abstract: Ice cores from the relatively low-lying ice caps in Svalbard have not been widely exploited in climatic and environmental studies due to uncertainties about the effect of melt water percolation. However, results from two recent Svalbard ice cores, at Lomonosovfonna (1250 m asl) and Austfonna (750 m asl), have shown that with careful site selection, high-resolution sampling and multiple chemical analyses, it is possible to recover ice cores with partly preserved annual signals. These cores are estimated to cover at least the past 600 years and have been dated using a combination of known reference horizons and glacial modeling. The δ18O data from both Lomonosovfonna and Austfonna ice cores suggest that the 20th century was the warmest during the past 600 years. A comparison of the ice core and sea ice records from this period suggests that sea ice extent and Austfonna δ18O are linked over the past 400 years. This may reflect the position of the storm tracks and their direct influence on the relatively low altitude Austfonna. Lomonosovfonna may be less sensitive to such changes and primarily record atmospheric changes due to its higher elevation. The anthropogenic influence on Svalbard environment is illustrated by increased levels of non-sea-salt sulphate, nitrate, acidity, fly-ash and organic contaminants particularly during the second half of 1900s. Decreased concentrations of some components in recent decades most likely reflect emission and use restrictions. However, some current-use organic pesticide compounds show growing concentrations in near surface layers.

Sea ice in the Baltic Sea - A review

Abstract: Although the seasonal ice cover of the Baltic Sea has many similarities to its oceanic counterpart in Polar Seas and Oceans, there are many unique characteristics that mainly result from the brackish waters from which the ice is formed, resulting in low bulk salinities and porosities. In addition, due to the milder climate than Polar regions, the annual maximum ice extent is highly variable, and rain and freeze-melt cycles can occur throughout winter. Up to 35% of the sea ice mass can be composed from metamorphic snow, rather than frozen seawater, and in places snow and superimposed ice can make up to 50% of the total ice thickness. There is pronounced atmospheric deposition of inorganic nutrients and heavy metals onto the ice, and in the Bothnian Bay it is estimated that 5% of the total annual flux of nitrogen and phosphorus and 20–40% of lead and cadmium may be deposited onto the ice fields from the atmosphere. It is yet unclear whether or not the ice is simply a passive store for atmospherically deposited compounds, or if they are transformed through photochemical processes or biological accumulation before released at ice and snow melt. As in Polar sea ice, the Baltic ice can harbour rich biological assemblages, both within the ice itself, and on the peripheries of the ice at the ice/water interface. Much progress has been made in recent years to study the composition of these assemblages as well as measuring biogeochemical processes within the ice related to those in underlying waters. The high dissolved organic matter loading of Baltic waters and ice result in the ice having quite different chemical characteristics than those known from Polar Oceans. The high dissolved organic material load is also responsible in large degree to shape the optical properties of Baltic Sea ice, with high absorption of solar radiation at shorter wavelengths, a prerequisite for active photochemistry of dissolved organic matter. Land-fast ice in the Baltic also greatly alters the mixing characteristics of river waters flowing into coastal waters. River plumes extend under the ice to a much greater distance, and with greater stability than in ice-free conditions. Under-ice plumes not only alter the mixing properties of the waters, but also result in changed ice growth dynamics, and ice biological assemblages, with the underside of the ice being encased, in the extreme case, with a frozen freshwater layer. There is a pronounced gradient in ice types from more saline ice in the south to freshwater ice in the north. The former is characteristically more porous and supports more ice-associated biology than the latter. Ice conditions also vary considerably in different parts of the Baltic Sea, with ice persisting for over half a year in the northernmost part of the Baltic Sea, the Bothnian Bay. In the southern Baltic Sea, ice appears only during severe winters.

Influence of large-scale atmospheric circulation on European sea level : results based on the wavelet transform method

Abstract: We examine relationships between the variability in the long-term time series of European sea level and the large-scale atmospheric circulation represented by the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and Arctic Oscillation (AO) indices using the wavelet transform (WT). Results demonstrate that between 10% and 35% of the variance in winter mean sea level may be explained by the atmospheric circulation influence. However, the relationship between atmospheric circulation and sea level shows remarkable changes over time, especially between the earlier part of the twentieth century and the 1990s. Four dominant signals with periods 2.2, 3.5, 5.2 and 7.8 yr are detected and analysed by the WT using time series of sea level typically 150 yr long together with the NAO/AO indices. Cross-wavelet power and wavelet coherence confirm the linkages between the two parameters for selective time periods.