It is commonly asserted that human communities in the Arctic are highly vulnerable to climate change, with the magnitude of projected impacts limiting their ability to adapt. At the same time, an increasing number of field studies demonstrate significant adaptive capacity. Given this paradox, we review climate change adaptation, resilience and vulnerability research to identify and characterize the nature and magnitude of the adaptation challenge facing the Arctic. We find that the challenge of adaptation in the Arctic is formidable, but suggest that drivers of vulnerability and barriers to adaptation can be overcome, avoided or reduced by individual and collective efforts across scales for many, if not all, climate change risks.
The Arctic has been undergoing transformative change in climatic conditions for several decades1. The magnitude of warming is one such manifestation of this, with an Arctic-wide warming trend of 1.9 °C documented over the past 30 years; a rate three times the global average2 (Tables 1 and 2). Climate models project that the Arctic will see the most rapid and extreme warming this century, at least double the global average3, which is expected to have substantial impacts on biophysical and human systems1 (see Supplementary Text Box). Climate policy is therefore of the utmost importance for Arctic regions.
The first reason for concern about adaptation is the scale, interconnectedness and speed of climate change, which is believed to create a limited window for action on adaptation. Studies reviewed here, however, describe high levels of adaptive capacity in Arctic communities of diverse sizes and socio-economic characteristics, with vulnerabilities often linked to how climate change interacts with non-climatic factors. Although this is not necessarily a new insight to the global scholarship, what is unique is the extent to which the literature demonstrates that even with pervasive and extensive environmental change associated with ~2 °C warming, it is non-climatic factors that primarily determine impacts, response options and barriers to adapting.
Non-climatic factors. Indigenous populations are the focus of the majority of the work reviewed here (81% of articles), with archaeological data revealing a long history of such communities adapting to environmental change24. For many indigenous knowledge systems, the Arctic environment is perceived as being in a constant state of flux, where surprise and change underpin daily survival, and knowledge of local environmental conditions, acknowledgement of uncertainty and unpredictability, flexibility in resource use, and social capital continue to underpin present-day adaptability24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30. Rapid climate change does not therefore necessarily pose insurmountable challenges for indigenous populations. Nowadays, however, climate change is not limited to biophysical change, but intersects with socio-economic and political factors, which influence adaptation and can amplify the consequences of climate change. Similarly, studies focusing on resource-based industries document climate change as one stress among many (for example, market prices), with climate change presenting both challenges and new opportunities for some industries (for example, the lengthening of some shipping seasons)31. The ability to exploit opportunities, however, is challenged by a variety of outside pressures including changing economic competitiveness, increasing costs and broader policy changes32, 33, 34. It is such human determinants that shape the circumstances within which climate change is experienced, and the literature reveals a number of important drivers of vulnerability and adaptation to this end.
First, resource-use systems (for example, for hunting, fishing, herding, etc.) across the Arctic have evolved in the context of variable and unpredictable climates, where risk is managed through the sequential utilization of a large number of ecological or climatic niches, with resource-use rotationally switched. Such diversity and flexibility historically underpinned adaptability, and continues to do so, but depends on flexibility at individual, household and community levels to diversify, innovate and take advantage of different options28, 35. Today, the success of such strategies is being constrained by societal changes, regulatory systems and competing land uses. Oil and gas development in the Yamalo-Nenets region of Siberia, for instance, is affecting the ability of reindeer herders to alter migration patterns in response to changing land access and snowfall patterns25, 36. In North America, the settlement of indigenous peoples in permanent communities starting in the mid-twentieth century has circumscribed adaptations that involve mobility and flexibility37, 38. Across Arctic regions, harvest regulations and quotas have reduced the ability to switch species harvested, or alter the timing and location of resource-use activities in response to changing conditions24, 30, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41.
Second, traditional and local knowledge systems are being affected by socio-cultural change, resulting in a loss of location-specific knowledge on environmental conditions. This limits adaptive options and behaviour, and constrains the perception of change42, 43, 44, 45, 46. For indigenous populations, research has illustrated that enhanced dangers of travelling on the rapidly changing sea ice reflects reduced competency in land skills among younger generations as much as it does the impacts of climate change, a trend situated in the context of transformational changes in lifestyles in the twentieth century41, 47. Similarly, in rural Alaska, Alessa et al.48 document how desensitization to environmental conditions has resulted in many from the younger generations not being aware that climate change is impacting freshwater resources, thereby affecting the perceived need for adaptation.
Third, changing demographics are altering socio-cultural structures across many small communities, a number of which are characterized by rapid population growth. For example, in the low-lying coastal village of Barrow, Alaska, the population has more than tripled since the 1960s, significantly increasing infrastructural development in high-risk locations. Barrow's vulnerability would thus have been likely to increase whether the climate was changing or not49. Elsewhere in the Arctic, outmigration is a major challenge facing communities trying to maintain essential services and functioning institutions. In Greenland, many small settlements have an uncertain future, with investment and policy focus of the Home Rule Government channelled to major centres with their economic functions, affecting resources available for adapting to climate change and institutional interest50. An ageing and declining population of labourers in Nordic regions, meanwhile, has been identified as posing a challenge to the sustainability of natural-resource-based trades already struggling to cope with climate impacts33.
Fourth, a common theme in much of the research reviewed here is limited decision-making control at local levels25, 36. This is particularly problematic for communities in Nordic countries and Russia, where decisions regarding land use and development are often made by the private sector with limited input from local populations33. Keskitalo and Kulyasova51, for example, demonstrate how small fishing communities in Finnmark, Norway and Archangelsk Oblast, Russia, have limited ability to take advantage of improved fish stocks with climate change, as quotas and boat size regulations favour large-scale fishers from other localities. In the Canadian Arctic, although decisions continue to be made outside of the Arctic region, the signing of land settlement agreements has increased the role of northern people in natural-resource-use decision-making and management, with potential positive impacts for adaptive capacity to future change29, 35.
Finally, countries with Arctic territory are characterized by high gross domestic product (GDP) and well-developed social, political and health systems, but there are often profound inequalities within and between northern regions. In many instances in the Canadian Arctic, Alaska and Greenland, indigenous populations are dealing with severe housing shortages and overcrowding, poverty and higher burdens of ill health52, 53. These conditions act as underlying determinants of vulnerability, increasing sensitivity to climate change impacts and constraining adaptive capacity. Many of these social challenges can, in part, be linked to historical acts associated with colonization15, 16, 54, 55. Such effects are longstanding and pervasive, although reconciliation efforts are being made in some countries and regions (for example, land claims agreements and the development of co-management regimes).
Rapid climate change. The primacy of non-climatic factors in shaping the ability to adapt is also evident in how the rate and magnitude of climate change has been observed to open up opportunities for renewal, reorganization and revitalization at various scales that otherwise may face more substantial barriers. At the international level, climate change seems to have focused the attention of high-level policy circles on Arctic issues, creating opportunities to revise and enhance governance systems that reflect the needs of those living in the north56. Climate change has created new spaces for lobbying and action by northern populations internationally, with a number of indigenous groups using international forums to highlight the risks posed by environmental change and to advocate for action on social issues (for example, in international media and at United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conferences of the Parties)57, 58. Domestically, too, climate change is leading to demands from local people to have greater political power to develop and implement local solutions, and is being used by some indigenous populations to mobilize politically to (re)assert their sovereignty, increase their decision-making power and revive traditional institutions and knowledge7, 57, 59.
The directional nature of climate change being experienced in the Arctic, along with recurrent extremes, is increasingly becoming the norm and seems to have motivated adaptation in some contexts27, 60, 61. Many indigenous communities in Alaska and northern Canada have been observing changes in climate and noting unusual conditions since the 1980s. Here, studies highlight that the speed of change is encouraging adaptive learning among subsistence harvesters in some instances — who, through regular observation of and interaction with the environment, are developing and refining adaptive strategies to deal with problematic conditions57, 60, 62, 63, 64. As such, traditional environmental knowledge is far from a static set of facts that climate change is making obsolete, but a dynamic and evolving body of knowledge that is continually being updated and refined in light of changing conditions14, 65.
However, the role of faster and more pronounced change in stimulating adaptive action is not uniform across regions: populations and communities who rely on a narrow resource base that is being undermined by climate change, where adaptation involves unacceptable loss of cultural and livelihood activities, or where the financial costs of adaptation are prohibitive, are examples where the speed of climate change presents a limit to adaptation (for example, see refs 66,67,68,69,70), where a 'limit' implies a level of adaptive capacity that cannot be surpassed71. For the Viliui Sakha people in northeastern Siberia, for example, there are few alternative economic and cultural activities available to traditional cattle and horse breeding. These livelihoods are being undermined by changing weather, snow and temperatures, and in some instances have forced people to abandon their traditional livelihood with negative implications including loss of culture67, 68.
The second concern is that adaptive capacity will not necessarily translate into actual adaptation, with multiple barriers potentially impeding adaptations across sectors and scales. As noted above, human systems in the Arctic have demonstrated high adaptability historically as well as in the context of recent change, but new vulnerabilities are emerging that relate to ongoing societal and environmental changes. A number of conditions are consistently identified in the literature as hampering the ability of local peoples to adapt. Few of these barriers are being substantively addressed, and are likely to constrain future adaptation in the absence of targeted attention.
First, northern institutions often lack the mandate, time and funding to address climate change impacts. This is compounded by the nature of adaptation, which often crosses jurisdictions, and involves responding to future unknown risks for which mandates, laws and demands for action do not exist35, 72, 73. In these situations, political leadership is critical for initiating the process of adaptation, providing strategic direction and sustaining momentum over time74, 75. There is evidence of such emerging leadership on adaptation in some regions, particularly in Canada and Alaska, although in most cases an absence of leadership has been identified as a major barrier to adaptation. In several instances, adaptation decision making and action is challenged by institutional fragmentation, understaffing and a lack of resources15, 37, URL: