3. SAO Meeting, 19 - 20 October 2010, Tórshavn, Faroe Islands
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Item Behaviour of oil and other hazardous and noxious substances (HNS) spilled in Arctic waters (BoHaSA). 2nd DRAFT.(SINTEF Materials and Chemistry, 2010-09-17) Lewis, Alun; Singsaas, IvarThe objective of the BoHaSA (Behaviour of oil and other Hazardous Substances in Arctic waters) project is to gather and synthesize the current knowledge and expertise on the behaviour of oil and other hazardous and noxious substances (HNS) that might be released into Arctic waters as a result of an accident ship. The project aim is to promote the development and use of technologies and working methods that improve the capability to respond to accidents that involve such substances. The report is a state-of-the-art report based on a literature review of previous work including also main findings from recent R&D projects. The report discusses the risk of oil and HNS spills in the Arctic, the potential fate and behaviour of such spills and response methods available today. The main focus is on spills to the sea water related to transportation and exploration and production activities. Up to date there have been only a few oil spills in Arctic waters and no reported significant incidents involving HNS. With increasing petroleum activities (exploration, production and transport) and shipping the risk for future incidents will increase. Many areas in the Arctic are remote areas with poor infrastructure. Combined with low temperatures, darkness and the presence of ice parts of the year, responding to spills of oil or bulk HNS may be very challenging. Based on the response methods available today recommendations are given for further improvement of strategies and technologies to deal with oil spills and spills of HNS in the Arctic.Item Project proposal by Norway. Maximising the Legacy of IPY.(Arctic Council Secretariat, 2008-01-23) Norwegian Delegation to the Arctic CouncilThe International Polar Year 2007-2008 (IPY) is a major, international research programme involving many tens of thousands of scientists. IPY aims to make significant advances in the polar sciences, and the IPY effort is especially large in the Arctic. IPY lasts from 1st March 2007 to 1st March 2009, but in reality many IPY projects will continue beyond that date. IPY will have a major impact on polar sciences for years to come. IPY consists of more than 200 international projects. The larger of these typically involve between 10 and 20 countries and a few hundred scientists. A major legacy of the research will be the advances in knowledge that IPY produces, both in publications and in stored, accessible data. In general, such issues are managed by the research communities, and there are already various discussions underway within the IPY bodies on such legacy questions. But this large cooperative effort also opens several other legacy issues. The permanent human presence in the Arctic, the different legal regimes in the Arctic compared to the Antarctic, and the different evolution of science cooperation in the two polar areas mean that many of these are Arctic specific. Thus the Arctic Council is the relevant body to discuss these, rather than the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meetings, although there obviously are also issues of common interest. It is thus both appropriate and timely that the Arctic Council now considers such IPY legacy issues and decides where it should apply efforts, to ensure that IPY provides maximum benefits and outcomes for society at large.Item Arctic Council Task Force on Short-Lived Climate Forcers: Progress Report and Recommendations for Ministers. (NEAR-FINAL DRAFT, 17 February 2011)(Arctic Council Secretariat, 2010) Arctic Council Task Force for Short-Lived Climate ForcersNear-final draft for Progress Report and Recommendations for Ministers from the Arctic Council's Task Force on Short-Lived Climate, presented at the Arctic Council's Senior Arctic Officials meeting in Tórshavn, Faroe Islands, October 19-20 2010. Please note that this is a working document and not the final draft as presented to ministers.Item Panarctic checklist of lichens and lichenicolous fungi.(CAFF International Secretariat, 2010-07) Kristinsson, Hörður; Zhurbenko, Mikhail; Steen Hansen, EricAt the CAFF Flora Group meeting held in Helsinki in March 2001, the need for an Atlas of rare and endemic lichens and bryophytes was discussed. Conservation of the biodiversity in the Arctic flora, including bryophytes and lichens as well as vascular plants, is one of the goals that the CAFF Flora Group is aiming at. It is obviously a prerequisite for dealing with conservation of rare or threatened species in this region, to have access to accumulated information on all the species involved and their distribution within the Arctic. An Atlas of Rare Endemic Vascular Plants of the Arctic had been published as CAFF Technical Report No. 3 in 1999. The conclusion was made at the meeting that similar information should be accumulated for lichens and bryophytes as well. It was clear, however, that because of scant information on the distribution of lichens and bryophytes in many regions of the Arctic, we had to approach this task in a different way from what was done in the case of vascular plants. Before picking out and identifying the rare taxa, it was a prerequisite first to compile a total list of all species in the Arctic, and then filter out a preliminary list of the rare and endemic species, that could then serve as a basis for further selection of the species to be included in the Atlas. It became the responsibility of the first author to initiate the work, compile the first main bulk of information, construct a database and maintain it to keep the data. The second author is responsible for providing information on the lichenicolous fungi, as well as new data from the Russian Arctic. The third author has provided access to his unpublished database on Greenland lichens. The aim of this paper is to provide both a total checklist of lichens and lichenicolous fungi in the Arctic as well as a preliminary list of rare and endemic lichens (Tables 2 and 3). The work that had already been initiated towards a Panarctic Flora by the PAF working group was a great help in preparations for producing the initial panarctic lichen checklist presented here. Panarctic checklist of vascular plants had already been made, although not published, providing solutions to some important problems that could be used for the panarctic lichen checklist. This applied to natural delimitation of the Arctic suitable for floristic work, as well as the regional division, both of which were adopted with little changes. The panarctic lichen checklist was first opened on http:// www.arcticportal.org on Dec. 2006. Since then many additions have been made to the list, and a number of dubious species have been dropped off as a result of continuing progress in taxonomic work that has shown them to be synonyms of other known species. A rough estimate of the frequency of the individual species has been added to the checklist, both within the Arctic and outside the Arctic, allowing us to filter out a preliminary list of rare and endemic species in the Arctic. This list should serve as a candidate list that needs to be further refined for inclusion in the Atlas of rare and endemic lichens in the Arctic.Item Proceedings of the Fifth International Workshop: Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna (CAFF) Flora Group. Cir- cumboreal Vegetation Mapping (CBVM) Workshop, Helsinki, Finland, November 3-6th, 2008.(CAFF International Secretariat, 2010-08) Talbot, S.; Charron, T.; Barry, T.The Circumpolar Arctic Vegetation Map (CAVM) is a map developed by Arctic vegetation specialists that depicts the vegetation of the global tundra biome at a scale that is useful for regional and global-change analysis and modelling. The proposed Circumboreal Vegetation Map (CBVM) has a similar goal. This paper presents an overview of the processes and hurdles involved in making the CAVM. Several suggestions are presented that would allow combining the CBVM and CAVM into one map that portrays the vegetation of both the Arctic and boreal biomes. These suggestions involve: (1) selecting the right team and leadership; (2) funding; (3) agreement on a plan for making the map; (4) defining the extent, scale, projection, and base for making the map; (5) phytogeographic subdivisions; (6) map content; (7) legend approach; and (8) summary tables of dominant plant communities. Keywords: Braun-Blanquet approach, floristic approach, GIS, hierarchical mapping, physiognomic units, tundra.