Climate Change in the Arctic - The Changing Arctic Environment: The Arctic Messenger - page 245

over the world. I think the leaders in this “missionary” work were and remain Lars-Otto
Reiersen, Bob Corell and Sheila Watt-Cloutier. We previously met Sheila in the chapter on
persistent organic pollutants and we will meet her again before our tale is fully told. These
three targeted every conceivable element, including the general public, educational institu-
tions, the scientific community and international legal frameworks, such as the UNFCCC
(including the Kyoto Protocol), the Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pol-
lution (CLRTAP) (under the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe) and the
European Union.
At the same time and working with other organisations, including the World Climate
Research Programme (WCRP) and the International Polar Year (IPY), AMAP embarked
on coordinating a new series of studies. This time, the aim was to measure and understand
how the Arctic cryosphere (those parts of Earth where water is frozen) is responding to
climate change. A project that approached ACIA dimensions was launched under the title
of Climate Change and the Cryosphere: Snow, Water, Ice and Permafrost in the Arctic
(SWIPA). Preliminary results of the Greenland ice sheet (and sea level rise) components
of the SWIPA assessment were presented at the 15th UNFCCC meeting of the Conferen-
ce of the Parties (COP 15) in Copenhagen in December 2009. Final SWIPA results were
presented at the 3-6 May 2011 Arctic Messenger conference in Copenhagen and a week
later were put before Arctic Council ministers in Nuuk, Greenland. It was at this meeting
that the idea of the Arctic Messenger as presented in this topic was born.
We will take a deeper look later, but in brief, SWIPA contained enough to hold the at-
tention of council ministers. It confirmed that Arctic snow and ice are melting much faster
than expected. The consequential impacts on Arctic ecosystems, Arctic indigenous peoples
and Arctic infrastructure are painful to contemplate. In response, the ministers decided to
strengthen the council to address the challenges that lie ahead. Furthermore, they recog-
nized that substantial cuts in emissions of carbon dioxide and other GHGs “are the back-
bone of meaningful global climate change mitigation efforts”. They noted “with concern
the accelerated change in major components of the cryosphere and the profound local, re-
gional and global effects of observed and expected changes” as described in the SWIPA