Nunataryuk Session "Indigenous Peoples, science and climate change in the Arctic: lessons learned and a way forward" at ICASS X

Permafrost coasts in the whole Arctic represent 34% of the world's coasts (Lantuit et al., 2012) and a key interface for human-environmental interactions. These coasts provide essential ecosystem services, exhibit high biodiversity and productivity, and support indigenous lifestyles. At the same time, this coastal zone is a dynamic and vulnerable zone of expanding infrastructure investment and growing health concerns. Climate change is affecting this fragile environment by triggering coastal landscape instability and increased hazard exposure (Forbes et al., 2011). Permafrost thaw in combination with increasing sea level and changing sea-ice cover expose the Arctic coastal and nearshore areas to rapid changes (Fritz et al. 2017). Since 2017, scientists from the Nunataryuk Project are working in cooperation with local communities in order to identify the impacts of thawing land, coast and subsea permafrost on the global climate and on humans in the Arctic and to develop targeted and co-designed adaptation and mitigation strategies.