Arctic Futures

The Center for Arctic Policy and its affiliates contribute to a number of forward-looking projects that seek to understand, envision, and shape the future of the Arctic. These "Arctic Futures" projects include:

Arctic Futures 2050

SEARCH (Study of Environmental Arctic Change) is leading the three-pronged effort, comprised of three contributions to informing Arctic policy with science. CAPS has participated in these in multiple ways:

Director Amy Lauren Lovecraft sits on the Science Steering Committee of SEARCH, and the SEARCH Executive Director is CAPS Affiliate Dr. Brendan Kelly.
Dr. Lovecraft co-led the Arctic Futures Scenario Workshop in Seattle in April 2018. A narrative report on the workshop, written by Dr. Lovecraft, and a full technical report can be downloaded here:

Citation: Lovecraft, A. L. 2019. Arctic Futures 2050: Scenarios Narratives. Report on the SEARCH Scenarios Project. Study of Environmental Arctic Change

Citation: denamics. 2018. SEARCH Scenarios Project Arctic Futures 2050: Technical Documentation. SEARCH.

Dr. Lovecraft and Research Associate Dustin Elsberry represented the Center for Arctic Policy Studies at the in Washington, DC, in Sept 2019, and presented a series of posters illustrating the outcomes of the 2018 Arctic Futures Scenario Workshop.

Participatory Scenario Methods and Outcomes: SEARCH Workshop April 2018

Amy Lauren Lovecraft, �ֻ�ֱ��, Marc Müller-Stoffels, denamics GmbH, Kelsey Aho, �ֻ�ֱ��, Douglas Cost, University of �ֻ�ֱ�� Fairbanks

Rigorous, informed speculation about the future of the Arctic can help scientists and decision-makers prepare today to take action for future research, policies, and investments. These seven posters provide the outcome of the shared knowledge and work by over 30 participants at the Arctic Futures 2050 Scenarios Project workshop initiated by the Study of Environmental Arctic Change (SEARCH) in April 2018. This group participated in a scenarios process using the Robustness Analysis Method to answer the question "What information is needed to successfully respond to changes in Arctic environments by 2050?" Specifically, there is a poster that explains the method, a poster explaining the workshop, and five others that represent plausible future worlds created using the key drivers and future projections identified by the experts at the workshop.

Scenario 1

An insecure Arctic in a warmer world with high resource demand (click image to enlarge)

Scenario 2

Arctic with incremental social trends but transformative atmospheric and marine change (click image to enlarge)

Scenario 4

Late century decline in emissions and little change in governance systems (click image to enlarge)

Scenario 6

Emissions reduced in an insecure world and depopulating Arctic (click image to enlarge)

Scenario 7

Significant global collaboration for adaptation to rising emissions (click image to enlarge)

Previous Next

Scenarios Development with �ֻ�ֱ��'s Arctic Indigenous Youth

Recent work by CAPS affiliate Dr. Douglas Cost and CAPS Director Amy Lauren Lovecraft has been published in a 2020 Polar Geography article "Scenarios development with �ֻ�ֱ��’s Arctic Indigenous youth: perceptions of healthy sustainable futures in the Northwest Arctic Borough."

From the abstract:

"How do arctic youth perceive the resilience of their communities?... Arctic Futures Makers (AFM) was a scenarios workshop of 22 �ֻ�ֱ�� Indigenous high school students convened over two days in February 2016 on the resilience of the Northwest Arctic Borough’s communities in light of climate and development changes. The scope of the scenarios workshop focused on defining factors the students felt were key to the future of healthy and sustainable communities.... Three findings are significant to explain how these youth think about themselves and their region’s future: (1) high school students’ results are similar to those of adults in similar workshops but with important differences related to what makes a community ‘livable’ (2) students were initially reticent to imagine multiple possible futures (3) students’ perceptions of their own communities’ resilience changed after the workshop experience."

Download the full article PDF here: Cost and Lovecraft_2020_Scenarios Development with �ֻ�ֱ��'s Arctic Indigenous Youth

SALIENSEAS Scenarios Workshop - Maritime Futures 2035: the Arctic Region

Doug Cost facilitates scenarios workshop UAF Assistant Professor Doug Cost facilitated this scenarios workshop in Copenhagen, Denmark, in November 2018. CAPS supported the travel and participation of Dr. Cost as a CAPS Affiliate. Dr. Berill Blair, also a CAPS Affiliate and UAF PhD alumna, and currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Environmental Policy Group of the University of Wageningen and Research, served as Workshop Lead. More information about the Scenarios Workshop can be found here, including a downloadable pdf of the workshop's final report. Both Cost and Blair worked together previously on the Northern �ֻ�ֱ�� Scenarios Project.

The Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP) of the Arctic Council completed a program that investigated three international regions of the Arctic to compare how people and institutions were adapting to the rapid pace of change in the North. You can read about the Adaptation Actions for a Changing Arctic . Drs. Lovecraft and Benjamin Preston were lead authors of a chapter on "Scenarios thinking for the Bering-Chukchi-Beaufort Region" for the report Adaptation Actions for a Changing Arctic: Perspectives from the Bering-Chukchi-Beaufort Region; the chapter can be downloaded here: Lovecraft & Preston (2017) Ch 8 Scenarios thinking.

Northern �ֻ�ֱ�� Scenarios Project

NASP workshop The Northern �ֻ�ֱ�� Scenarios Project (NASP) was a National Science Foundation funded project in partnership with the �ֻ�ֱ�� Native Tribal Health Consortium. NASP engaged representatives from sectors across the Northwest Arctic Borough and the North Slope Borough in scenarios development related to key aspects of healthy communities: “peace, shelter, education, food, income, a stable ecosystem, sustainable resources, social justice and equity”. CAPS Director Dr. Amy Lovecraft served as Principle Investigator on this project, which focused on how to achieve healthy sustainable Arctic �ֻ�ֱ��n communities by the year 2040.

*March 2020 update* A new paper, by Dr. Berill Blair and CAPS Director Amy Lauren Lovecraft appears in the open-access journal Sustainability as part of a . The paper builds on research undertaken as part of NASP, and explores consensus about risks and uncertainties in Arctic boroughs grappling with rapid social–ecological transformations in northern �ֻ�ֱ��.

Oil and Gas Infrastructure and Commercial Transportation in Arctic �ֻ�ֱ��

Synthesis Report COver This 2014 synthesis report, authored by Dr. Kevin Hillmer-Pegram in tandem with his doctoral degree at the �ֻ�ֱ��, was produced as part of the North by 2020 Forum with support provided by Ocean Conservancy and The Pew Charitable Trusts. This report is intended as a factual and unbiased reference for the wide range of stakeholders interested in such industrial activities. The purpose of this report is to synthesize information about existing, planned, and proposed infrastructure and operations that support oil and gas exploration and production and commercial transportation over the whole of Arctic �ֻ�ֱ��, compiling a region-wide vision of these industrial activities that has not previously existed. Taken as a whole, the report provides readers with an overview of the history, current conditions, and plausible future extent of industrial infrastructure in Arctic �ֻ�ֱ��. The report builds on the National Research Council’s 2003 study entitled Cumulative Environmental Effects of Oil and Gas Activities on �ֻ�ֱ��’s North Slope by filling the need for regional-level studies that present information about oil and gas development and other types of industrial activities in a usable manner for a wide audience of stakeholders and in support of an integrated approach to planning and management.The information in this report was used as background material for oil and gas and commercial transportation issues in two subsequent scenario building efforts in Arctic �ֻ�ֱ��.

North by 2020 book cover In 2007, as part of the International Polar Year 2007-2009, Dr. Lovecraft, along with Dr. Hajo Eicken, served on the Executive Committee of the to implement a forum for local and global perspectives on the North at the University of �ֻ�ֱ��. The forum supported a number of projects, conversations, and events, with the goal of "explor[ing] discuss[ing], plan[ning] and prepar[ing for] opportunities for sustainable development in a North experiencing rapid transformation...by facilitating research and education across disciplinary boundaries to address the real world concerns surrounding Northern futures while at the same time engaging public, private, and government stakeholders."

Dr. Lovecraft, along with IARC Director Dr. Hajo Eicken, co-edited the transdisciplinary volume (University of Chicago Press, 2011, which originated in a series of workshops held at the �ֻ�ֱ�� Forum of the Fourth International Polar Year.