A typhoon, smoke from wildfires and increasing rain are not what most imagine when thinking of the Arctic. Yet these are some of the climate-driven events included in NOAA’s 2022 Arctic Report Card, which provides a detailed picture of how warming is reshaping the once reliably frozen, snow-covered region which is heating up faster than any other part of the world.
This year’s Arctic Report Card also features the most comprehensive chapter in the annual report’s 17-year history about how these dramatic environmental changes are felt by Arctic Indigenous people, and how their communities are addressing the changes.
The 15th chapter of the report card, authored by a team that includes Native Alaskan scientists, describes how warming air temperatures, shrinking sea ice, shorter periods of snow cover, increased wildfire, rising levels of precipitation and changes in animal migration patterns and their abundance profoundly affect the safety, food security, health, economic wellbeing and cultural traditions of Indigenous people.
“Living and innovating in Arctic environments over millennia, Indigenous peoples have evolved holistic knowledge that provides resilience and sustainability,” said Jackie Qatalina Schaeffer, a co-author of the chapter, Director of Climate Initiatives for the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium offsite link and an Inupiaq from Kotzebue, Alaska. “Addressing the unprecedented environmental change requires listening to one another, aligning values and collaborating together as communities, businesses, governments, Indigenous and non-Indigenous scientists and decision-makers.”
“With this important new chapter and other timely additions, the 2022 Arctic Report Card underscores the urgency to confront the climate crisis by reducing greenhouse gasses and taking steps to be more resilient,” said NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad, Ph.D. “The report provides observations and analysis to help build a Climate-Ready Nation in a region on the front lines of climate change.”
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