Rapid Arctic Transitions due to Infrastructure and Climate (RATIC). An initiative of the of the International Arctic Science Committee (IASC).

Join us for a short series of online talks as we gear up for Arctic Science Summit Week 2025 and the ICARP IV Summit. Each talk will be followed by time for discussion that will focus on research priorities for the next 10 years.

All talks are at 9:00a Alaska, 1:00p Eastern, 18:00 UTC, and 19:00 in Western/Central Europe. (Time Zone Converter) . The meeting link will be sent in advance to the RATIC email list. Use the contact form below to request being added the mailing list.

Thurs, December 5: Pan-Arctic assessment of coastal settlements and infrastructure vulnerable to coastal erosion, sea-level rise, and permafrost thaw

Rodrigue Tanguy, bGeos

This study assesses the vulnerability of Arctic coastal settlements and infrastructure to coastal erosion, Sea-Level Rise (SLR) and permafrost warming. For the first time, we characterize coastline retreat consistently along permafrost coastal settlements at the regional scale for the Northern Hemisphere. We provide a new method to automatically derive long-term coastline change rates for permafrost coasts. In addition, we identify the total number of coastal settlements and associated infrastructure that could be threatened by marine and terrestrial changes using remote sensing techniques. We extended the Arctic Coastal Infrastructure dataset (SACHI) to include road types, airstrips, and artificial water reservoirs. The analysis of coastline position, Ground Temperature (GT) and Active Layer Thickness (ALT) changes from 2000-2020, in addition with SLR projection, allowed to identify settlements and infrastructure exposed to permafrost thaw for 2030, 2050, and 2100. We validated the SACHI-v2, GT and ALT datasets through comparisons with in-situ data. 60% of the detected infrastructure is built on low-lying coast (< 10 m a.s.l). The results show that in 2100, 45% of all coastal settlements will be affected by SLR and 21% to coastal erosion. On average, coastal permafrost GT is increasing by 0.8 °C per decade, and ALT is increasing by 6 cm per decade. In 2100, GT will become positive at 77% of the built infrastructure area. Our results highlight the circumpolar and international amplitude of the problem and emphasize the need for immediate adaptation measures to current and future environmental changes to counteract a deterioration of living conditions and ensure infrastructure sustainability.

Thurs, January 9: Social science research on Arctic infrastructure

Peter Schweitzer and Olga Povoroznyuk, University of Vienna

Thurs, January 16: History of Arctic infrastructure development in Alaska and Russia

Phil Wight and Tyler Kirk, University of Alaska Fairbanks

Thurs, February 6: Innovative permafrost monitoring and research directions for resilient Arctic civil infrastructure

Ming Xiao, Penn State University

Past Series: 2021-2022 series