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Impacts of climate change

“Human influence on the climate system is clear, and recent anthropogenic emissions of green-house gases are the highest in history. Recent climate changes have had widespread impacts on human and natural systems.” - IPCC Climate Change 2014 Synthesis Report  [1]

"Climate" normally refers to the average weather in a given area, including the long-term patterns, typical conditions and variability. Expected weather and environmental changes around Tuktoyaktuk the coming century include changes to air and ground temperatures, more extreme and variable weather conditions, increased winter precipitation, less and thinner sea ice, changes to wildlife distribution patterns  [2,3,4,5].

Possible future scenarios

We can’t be certain of how extreme the future effects of climate change will be, because they depend on not only the past and present, but also future human activity – whether we continue to produce greenhouse gas emissions at the same pace, or if we reduce these emissions. One way to represent the different scenarios is as Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs). There are four pathways used to describe possible futures under climate change: RCP2.6, RCP4.5, RCP6.0, and RCP8.5 [1, 7]. The RCP number refers to the net radiative forcing, or the energy that is effectively trapped in the atmosphere by the greenhouse effect, in the year 2100. A larger number indicates more radiative forcing, and more extreme climate changes.

When incorporating climate change projections into building plans or risk assessments, best practice is to plan for the most extreme case. The most recent consultant recommendations for shoreline protection in Tuktoyaktuk [7, 8] use the upper limit of sea level rise and wave exposure projections under RCP8.5, and the median increased air temperature for the same pathway (see table below). Taking the high-end of possible climate change outcomes means that in the worst case the community will be sufficiently protected, and in the best case the shoreline protection will last longer than expected.

Below you will find a list of some of the most severe impacts of climate change to Tuktoyaktuk. To learn more, click on the links to access summaries of the impact, maps and access full scientific reports.