The Cost of Climate Change to Arctic Communities and Infrastructure
Open AccessArctic climate is changing rapidly due to amplified warming that will continue through the 21st century. The effects of this climate change are already observed and further projected to destabilize permafrost, putting human infrastructure at risk and limiting accessibility of remote communities. This work analyses the spatial patterns of climatically driven environmental changes using a subset of three CMIP6 models under the SSP245 and SSP585 scenarios to estimate magnitude and extent of infrastructure and communities affected by permafrost degradation in Arctic regions of the USA, Canada, Russia, Iceland, Sweden, Norway and Finland by decade of 2055-2064. The infrastructure database was developed based on publicly available sources to identify various types of infrastructure at risk including transportation infrastructure such as roads, railways and airports as well as residential infrastructure including buildings. The economic database was developed for Arctic states using country-specific construction statistics and to estimate regional costs associated with damage to infrastructure due to loss of bearing capacity and ground subsidence. The results show that under the SSP245 scenario 29% of roads, 28% of railroads, 29% of buildings and 15% of airports will be affected, costing $338 billion USD by the mid-century. Under the SSP585 scenario 44% of roads, 42% of railroads, 47% of buildings, and 27% of airports will be affected with estimated cost of $537.6 billion USD. Therefore, limiting global greenhouse gas emissions have potential to significantly decrease the costs of projected damages in the Arctic countries.
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