Word: arcticnet
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...world heats up again--this time far more rapidly--the question repeats: Who wins and who loses? Climate models are notoriously useless at predicting local effects of global change. But a massive new Canadian research project, ArcticNet, may provide some early answers about the connections among warming, melting, ecosystem reorganization and human response. And the results may be the best indicator the world will get about what to expect elsewhere. The Arctic will show the earliest and most severe signs of global warming--with Canadian calculations predicting a rise in mean temperature of more than 4 degrees Celsius between...
...ArcticNet, the biggest Arctic research project ever undertaken, calls on more than 100 Canadian researchers from 27 universities and five federal departments to study just about everything in the Canadian Arctic that could be changed by global warming. "It's interesting, but pretty useless, to say the Arctic may have a three-month, ice-free summer, if you don't also look at what the impact will be on the people and industry in the north," says Louis Fortier, scientific director of the Networks of Centres of Excellence project, launched in 2004 and due to run at least seven years...
...winners in Canada's Arctic? When the Northwest Passage finally clears enough to be a viable shipping route--probably in the next 50 years--a whole range of trade opportunities will come with it. So will resources, as fossil-fuel deposits in the ocean floor become more accessible. ArcticNet researchers are already mapping out the undersea terrain with sonar and analyzing the geopolitical implications of finding the long-sought Arctic Grail. Their proposals should help the government deal with an international legal dispute already under way: whether the Northwest Passage is within Canadian waters, subject to domestic security and environmental...
...levels by 2012--are not achievable given that Canada is, by latest reckoning, 24% over the 1990 baseline. The government has announced that it will develop new "made in Canada" action plans for cutting emissions. Ultimately, once again, the problem will be figuring out which impacts count. But if ArcticNet results are meaningful, the whole world should take note of Canada's north. "It's kind of the canary in the mine shaft," says Louis Fortier. And the canary is roasting...
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