28 March 2022 from 09:00 - 18:00 (CEST / GMT+2)
Open Session
HYBRID
Room: 1.417 (Teorifagbygget Hus 1)
Session Abstract:
The increasing occurrence of high-latitude fires associated with climatic extremes has led to significant and urgent social, economic and health challenges for communities in these regions. Hazardous pollution levels, for example, are regularly observed to result from nearby fire emissions in high-latitude communities during spring and summer. However, despite high-latitude regions playing host to large annual fires, and with projections of increasing fire frequency, the contribution from these fires to pollutant health burdens is not well understood. Understanding how changes in fire activity relate to changes in the climate and terrestrial environment, and how these changes impact upon the wellbeing, livelihoods, and culture of high-latitude communities, requires interdisciplinary understanding of the complex interactions between climate systems, ecosystems and society.
The aim of this workshop is to share current state-of-the-art understanding on high-latitude fire impacts on climate, ecosystems, air quality and society in the Arctic and high latitudes, and to explore interdisciplinary linkages, from PACES, ecosystem science, fire science, health, and social science communities, that could help drive forward new research on this topic.
Through this workshop, we expect to develop an agenda for new interdisciplinary research topics under PACES on the theme of fires and their impacts. This will include synergies across short-lived climate forcer influences and Earth system feedbacks (PACES WG1) and societal impacts (PACES WG2), as well as synergies around land-surface and ecosystem research topics. We expect to publish a position paper outlining the current status of the research area and potential new directions.
The event will be arranged by a collaborative team involving:
- PACES(Air Pollution in the Arctic: Climate, Environment and Societies);
- ACRoBEAR(Arctic Community Resilience to Boreal Environmental change: Assessing Risks from fire and disease – University of Leeds);
- Leverhulme Centre for Wildfires, Environment and Society(Imperial College London, King’s College London, University of Reading and Royal Holloway);
- Arctic Voices(University of Leeds)
Session Organizer:
Adriana Ford