Why to study the Artic?

Last days I have showed my PhD project to my 3 supervisors (Dr. Carlos Duarte, Dr. Alejandro Rozenfeld (both from IMEDEA/CSIC), and Dr. Pablo Marquet (from PUC/Chile)). My propose is to work with computational models in order to study the effects of Global Changes in Ecological Networks. Inside this project there are a lot of tools to analyze and simulate ecological interactions and the effects of possible changes in the environmental.

After some (actually, a lot of) suggestions, they asked about the possibility of working with a specific case of study instead of working only with theoretical simulations and analysis. They all agree that a good choice would be to study ecosystems in the Artic (North Pole). Since then, I am thinking about "why" the Artic?

Today I found a good answer in a text written by Carlos Duarte: "Enhanced research efforts in the Arctic is particularly important not only because of the ecological changes that may take place, but also because these areas are located strategically near tipping elements of the Earth System."

“Society may be lulled into a false sense of security by smooth projections of global change,” the researchers around Timothy Lenton from the British University of East Anglia in Norwich and Hans Joachim Schellnhuber from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research report. Global change may appear to be a slow and gradual process on human scales. However, in some regions anthropogenic forcing on the climate system could kick-start abrupt and potentially irreversible changes. For these sub-systems of the Earth system the researchers introduce the term “tipping element”.

Drawing on a workshop of 36 leading climate scientists in October 2005 at the British Embassy, Berlin, Germany, a further elicitation of 52 experts in the field, and a review of the pertinent literature, the authors compiled a short-list of nine potential tipping elements. These tipping elements are ranked as the most policy-relevant and require consideration in international climate politics.

Arctic sea-ice and the Greenland Ice Sheet are regarded as the most sensitive tipping elements with the smallest uncertainty. Scientists expect ice cover to dwindle due to global warming. The West Antarctic Ice Sheet is probably less sensitive as a tipping element, but projections of its future behavior have large uncertainty.

Fig. Tipping Points

That is it! Probably I will use the Artic (or Antartic, ... or both) ecosystem like a case of study, because of its importance in the trigger of many environmental changes, as consequences of global changes.

Starting to blog

Hi, this blog is a kind of "diary" of my PhD activities, in order to record the progress of my works in the "Master course and Phd in Global Change" at the Universidad Menédez Pelayo.

Thank you for your visit!

Greetings,

Charles