What’s The Value Of Arctic Sea Ice?
The ecosystem services provided by the Arctic sea ice urgently need to be given an economic value too, says polar explorer and Geo Mission CEO Pen Hadow.
On Wednesday the National Ecosystem Assessment (NEA) released a report valuing the country’s parks, lakes, forests and wildlife at billions of pounds of economic benefit to the UK economy (BBC Nature ‘is worth billions’ to UK).
On reading the report, polar explorer and founder of environmental sponsorship organisation Geo Mission, Pen Hadow, said: “We are now starting to quantify and price the services our forests provide to the world, and can therefore begin to trade their benefits in the market. But the economic services provided by the now fast-disappearing Arctic sea ice are still entirely unquantified.”
Pen Hadow drills through Arctic sea ice
The role of the sea ice in providing, for example, a ‘reflective heat shield’ for the planet is only beginning to be fully understood. Yet the unexpectedly rapid pace of its summertime ice melt means this natural ecosystem service may be irreversibly reduced or lost before its full function and value is responsibly assessed.
“Changes in the Arctic are likely to have impacts throughout the northern hemisphere. The Arctic, for example, plays a vital role in influencing powerful ocean currents which strongly influence the UK’s current climate. This ocean circulation system may also be absorbing and transporting CO2 from the atmosphere, thereby acting as a natural carbon sink like our forests – a possibility investigated last month during the Catlin Arctic Survey research expedition.”
“Until the natural world and its processes, systems and resources can be given an economic value, and we can thereby integrate the costs of these natural services into the national and global economic systems, then there is no realistic possibility of halting the systematic deterioration of the natural environment. Corporately sponsored environmental research, such as the Catlin Arctic Survey, is playing its part in getting us closer to evaluating Arctic ecosystem services,” Pen Hadow said.