Climigration? Population and climate change in Arctic Alaska
Residents of towns and villages in Arctic Alaska live on “the front line of climate change.” Some communities face immediate threats from erosion and flooding associated with thawing permafrost, increasing river flows, and reduced sea ice protection of shorelines. The term climigration, referring to...
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ftuninhampshire:oai:scholars.unh.edu:soc_facpub-1406 2023-05-15T14:46:37+02:00 Climigration? Population and climate change in Arctic Alaska Hamilton, Lawrence C. Saito, Kei Loring, Philip A. Lammers, Richard B. Huntington, Henry P. 2016-06-23T07:00:00Z application/pdf https://scholars.unh.edu/soc_facpub/407 https://scholars.unh.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1406&context=soc_facpub unknown University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository https://scholars.unh.edu/soc_facpub/407 https://scholars.unh.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1406&context=soc_facpub © The Author(s) 2016 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ CC-BY Sociology Scholarship Climate Migration Climigration Alaska Arctic Erosion Sociology text 2016 ftuninhampshire 2023-01-30T21:40:56Z Residents of towns and villages in Arctic Alaska live on “the front line of climate change.” Some communities face immediate threats from erosion and flooding associated with thawing permafrost, increasing river flows, and reduced sea ice protection of shorelines. The term climigration, referring to migration caused by climate change, originally was coined for these places. Although initial applications emphasized the need for government relocation policies, it has elsewhere been applied more broadly to encompass unplanned migration as well. Some historical movements have been attributed to climate change, but closer study tends to find multiple causes, making it difficult to quantify the climate contribution. Clearer attribution might come from comparisons of migration rates among places that are similar in most respects, apart from known climatic impacts. We apply this approach using annual 1990–2014 time series on 43 Arctic Alaska towns and villages. Within-community time plots show no indication of enhanced out-migration from the most at-risk communities. More formally, there is no significant difference between net migration rates of at-risk and other places, testing several alternative classifications. Although climigration is not detectable to date, growing risks make either planned or unplanned movements unavoidable in the near future. Text Arctic Climate change Ice permafrost Sea ice Alaska University of New Hampshire: Scholars Repository Arctic |
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University of New Hampshire: Scholars Repository |
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topic |
Climate Migration Climigration Alaska Arctic Erosion Sociology |
spellingShingle |
Climate Migration Climigration Alaska Arctic Erosion Sociology Hamilton, Lawrence C. Saito, Kei Loring, Philip A. Lammers, Richard B. Huntington, Henry P. Climigration? Population and climate change in Arctic Alaska |
topic_facet |
Climate Migration Climigration Alaska Arctic Erosion Sociology |
description |
Residents of towns and villages in Arctic Alaska live on “the front line of climate change.” Some communities face immediate threats from erosion and flooding associated with thawing permafrost, increasing river flows, and reduced sea ice protection of shorelines. The term climigration, referring to migration caused by climate change, originally was coined for these places. Although initial applications emphasized the need for government relocation policies, it has elsewhere been applied more broadly to encompass unplanned migration as well. Some historical movements have been attributed to climate change, but closer study tends to find multiple causes, making it difficult to quantify the climate contribution. Clearer attribution might come from comparisons of migration rates among places that are similar in most respects, apart from known climatic impacts. We apply this approach using annual 1990–2014 time series on 43 Arctic Alaska towns and villages. Within-community time plots show no indication of enhanced out-migration from the most at-risk communities. More formally, there is no significant difference between net migration rates of at-risk and other places, testing several alternative classifications. Although climigration is not detectable to date, growing risks make either planned or unplanned movements unavoidable in the near future. |
format |
Text |
author |
Hamilton, Lawrence C. Saito, Kei Loring, Philip A. Lammers, Richard B. Huntington, Henry P. |
author_facet |
Hamilton, Lawrence C. Saito, Kei Loring, Philip A. Lammers, Richard B. Huntington, Henry P. |
author_sort |
Hamilton, Lawrence C. |
title |
Climigration? Population and climate change in Arctic Alaska |
title_short |
Climigration? Population and climate change in Arctic Alaska |
title_full |
Climigration? Population and climate change in Arctic Alaska |
title_fullStr |
Climigration? Population and climate change in Arctic Alaska |
title_full_unstemmed |
Climigration? Population and climate change in Arctic Alaska |
title_sort |
climigration? population and climate change in arctic alaska |
publisher |
University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository |
publishDate |
2016 |
url |
https://scholars.unh.edu/soc_facpub/407 https://scholars.unh.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1406&context=soc_facpub |
geographic |
Arctic |
geographic_facet |
Arctic |
genre |
Arctic Climate change Ice permafrost Sea ice Alaska |
genre_facet |
Arctic Climate change Ice permafrost Sea ice Alaska |
op_source |
Sociology Scholarship |
op_relation |
https://scholars.unh.edu/soc_facpub/407 https://scholars.unh.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1406&context=soc_facpub |
op_rights |
© The Author(s) 2016 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
_version_ |
1766317828515823616 |