Stakeholder Portal
climate change in the arctic: what can we expect?
 
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Northportal: The BALANCE Stakeholder Portal
Climate models predict that due to rising levels of greenhouse gases, climate factors like temperature, wind, rainfall and snowfall will change across the globe. Effects include rising sea levels, more storms, floods and droughts and changes in vegetation and animal distribution.

study area
Map: Rutger Dankers

The northernmost regions are expected to undergo changes stronger than many other areas in the world. Even if emissions are stopped now, the effects of climate change will impact people so greatly, that adapting to them in the coming decades seems inevitable (source of information: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)).
Sectors like reindeer husbandry, forestry and fishing, which rely on natural resources, are very vulnerable to such changes.
The portal www.northportal.info aims to inform people living and working in the Barents region how climate change will:

    (1) impact northern Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia in general and
    (2) impact the sectors forestry, reindeer husbandry and fishery in particular,
    (3) how can stakeholders adapt, and
    (4) what policy makers can do.

The page provides information for people involved in forestry, fishery or reindeer herding, and for the interested general public. The information reflects the experience of people living and working in the Barents region which has been combined with current climate change modelling results.

The information results from the research project BALANCE (2002-2005) which was funded by the European Commission. The portal has been conceptualised and the pages have been designed and implemented by Nicole Ostlaender (formerly University of Muenster) and Carina Keskitalo (University of Lapland/Umea University). Visit also the BALANCE homepage at www.balance-eu.info. The picture shows the BALANCE consortium during a project meeting at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm in November 2003. BALANCE Consortium
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