The first six months of 2016 were the planet’s warmest since meteorologists started keeping records in the late 19th century, while Arctic sea ice shrank to its lowest extent since consistent satellite records began in the late 1970s, according to NASA scientists. This has created a broad range of different challenges for ecosystems, people and policymakers around the Arctic. In Norway, it has stoked political controversy, as changes in the character and extent of ice cover has led to an expansion of the area open for oil prospecting.
This panel brings together two leading international scholars to explore important characteristics and developments of the zone in which polar sea ice meets open water, as they discuss the biological and political questions and consequences of recent changes in sea ice coverage in the Arctic. What do recent developments tell us about changing biological and political geographies of Arctic seascapes, and the Barents Sea in particular? The exciting combination of natural and social science cutting edge research brings disciplines and analysis into conversation, which in turn enables an understanding of both geophysical and political developments.
Marit Reigstad (UiT) is a professor and leading specialist on Arctic and subarctic ecosystems, who will tell us more about the Barents Sea through its ecosystems and the biological and physical processes. She’s involved in a range of research projects focusing on these issues, including “CarbonBridge” exploring productivity and carbon cycling in an area where models suggest substantial changes in future productivity due to ice retreat and “Arctic SIZE” on ecosystems in the seasonal ice zone, and the planned initiative “The Nansen Legacy” uniting the Norwegian Arctic marine expertise in providing sufficient knowledge for a sustainable future management of a changing northern Barents Sea.
Phil Steinberg places present Norwegian conflicts over the location, definition, and significance of the ice edge within the context of international debates concerning the role and representation of sea ice in law, maps, and public policy. Steinberg is the director of Durham University’s Centre for Borders Research (IBRU) and has written extensively on the history of the law of the sea and its development in the context of regional and global uses and perceptions of maritime seascapes. He has published widely on Polar politics, with funding from the US National Science Foundation, the European Commission, and International Council for Canadian Studies, for example by heading the research project Global Alternatives for an Interconnected Arctic.
Moderator: Berit Kristoffersen, political geographer at UiT.
Free coffe will be served from 0845. We welcome not only students and staff at UiT, but everyone in Tromsø interested in this pressing ecological and political issue to UiT-breakfast, which is organized by students in sociology, political science and community planning at UiT.