The Cost of Climate Change to Arctic Communities and Infrastructure

Keywords: Climate, Arctic, Infrastructure, Permafrost
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Friday
Session Start / End Time: 2/25/2022 08:00 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/25/2022 09:20 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 58

Abstract

Arctic climate is changing rapidly due to amplified warming that will continue through the 21st century. The effects of this climate change are already observed and further projected to destabilize permafrost, putting human infrastructure at risk and limiting accessibility of remote communities. We analyze the spatial patterns of climatically driven environmental changes using a subset of CMIP6 models under the SSP585 scenario and estimate magnitude and extent of affected infrastructure and communities for Arctic regions of the USA, Canada, Russia, Iceland, Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Denmark. Economic and infrastructure databases are used to evaluate costs at the regional scale as well as identify communities that are most vulnerable to permafrost related hazards such as ground subsidence and bearing capacity change. The infrastructure database was developed from publicly available sources to identify various types of infrastructure at risk including transportation infrastructure such as roads, railways and airports as well as residential infrastructure including buildings. The economic database was developed for Arctic states using country-specific construction statistics and to calculate regional costs based on permafrost damage derived from permafrost models forced with CMIP6 climate data. Ultimately, we communicate the impacts of climate change on various types of infrastructure at municipal, state and country levels that can be used by various stakeholders to develop adaptation and mitigation strategies in the Arctic.