Towards an Antarctic scenarios dashboard

ABSTRACT

This research note provides guidance for the development of simple indicators set in a dashboard format to illustrate current and future states of Antarctica. It supports increasing interest in the complexities of long-term futures relating to Antarctica. Scenario processes enable structured possibilities about the impacts and implications of multiple drivers of change that need to be integrated to enable effective decision making within the Antarctic Treaty System. Draft indicators for the Antarctic Scenarios Integrated Framework are presented in line with an organising structure analogous to the current practice of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It draws on a concise set of elements that build on existing research, including social, economic and environmental factors. Current baseline data are available as described through a range of open-source online databases and information sources. The aim is to provide accessible heuristics for a complex and emerging phenomenon that may only be described through crude estimates of quantitative data or through qualitative impressions of geopolitical information over a time line of anywhere from five to a hundred years. In this sense, the indicators are concerned less with accuracy and more with their materiality in highly complex, uncertain circumstances and strong inter-relationships. The note ends with suggestions on how the dashboard could be further developed.

KEYWORDS:

• Antarctic futures
• Antarctic governance
• futures studies
• global environmental change
• scenarios indicators dashboard

Acknowledgments

Support and insights by Neil Gilbert, Alan Hemmings and Daniela Liggett in developing the paper are most gratefully acknowledged.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

^1. Frame and Hemmings, “Coronavirus at the end of the world”

^2. Elsawah et al., “Scenario processes for socio-environmental systems analysis”

^3. These and other criteria (Cash et al, “Knowledge systems,” 8086-91; Sarki et al., “Adding,” 505-12) are the topic of much debate as reviewed by Cradock-Henry and Frame, “Balancing scales”

^4. IPCC, “Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate”.

^5. Frame, “ Typology for Antarctic futures,” 236–246; Frame, “Antarctic Scenarios Integrated Framework”.

^6. Examples include, but are by no means limited to: Abdel-Motaal, “Antarctica”; Amelung and Lamers, “Scenario development,” 133–39; Chaturvedi, “India and Antarctica”; Commonwealth of Australia, “Australian Antarctic Strategy”; Ferrada, “Five Factors,” 84–109; Hemmings, “Emerging challenges,” 55–72; “Utopian Framings,” 273–276; “Southern Horizons,” 129–153; Kennicutt et al., “Six priorities,”23–25; “A Roadmap,” 3–18; “Delivering,” 407–23; Liggett, et al., “Four future scenarios,” 459–478; Liu and Brooks, “The Future”; O’Reilly, “Antarctic Climate Futures,” 384–398; Press, “20 Year”; Rintoul et al., “Choosing the Future,” 233–241; and Scott, “The next fifty years,” 3–40; and “Looking back,” 95–107.

^7. Liggett et al., “Four future scenarios,” 459–478; Rintoul et al., “Choosing the future of Antarctica,” 233–241.

^8. For example, James et al., “Urban Sustainability”.

^9. Frame, “Antarctic Scenarios Integrated Framework”.

^10. O’Neill et al., ”New Scenario Framework,” 384–398, and Ebi et al., “New Toolkit,” 6–16.

^11. Rintoul et al., “Choosing the future of Antarctica,” 233–241.

^12. https://iiasa.ac.at

^13. Hemmings, “International Space Station,”5–16 and Hemmings, “Antarctic Treaty System”.

^14. www.comnap.aq

^15. This has been tabled at the ATCM, for example see ATCM XLI Information Paper 29 (2018) Biological Prospecting in the Antarctic Treaty Area. https://documents.ats.aq/ATCM41/ip/ATCM41_ip029_e.doc

^16. Rintoul et al., (2018) “Choosing the future of Antarctica”

^17. https://www.scar.org/srp/antclim21/

^18. Ibid.

^19. See www.iucnredlist.org

^20. For example Chown et al. (2012) “Continent-wide risk assessment”; McCarthy et al. (2019), “Marine biological invasions”; Hughes et al. (2020), “Invasive non-native species.”

^21. See www.un.org/bbnj

^22. See Hemmings, (2020), “The Antarctic Treaty System” for the 2018 Year in Review and the same journal for prior years.

^23. www.scar.org

^24. Kennicutt et al., (2014a), “Six Priorities”; (2014b), “Roadmap”; (2016), “Delivering 21^st century science.”

^25. As described in O’Neill et al. (2014), “New Scenario framework” and Ebi et al. (2014), “A new toolkit”