On 18-20 of May a Second Pan-Eurasian Experiment Science Conference took place in Beijing, China. The conference attracted a large number of experts from all over the world, and Professor Veli-Pekka Tynkkynen was one of them. He participated in the session “From Society to Knowledge Transfer and International Collaboration” with a presentation titled “Russian climate policies and local reality”.
Conference programme and information can be found here.
An open access scientific journal, Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene published a new co-authored by Veli-Pekka Tynkkynen article “Arctic air pollution: Challenges and opportunities for the next decade”.
The Arctic is a sentinel of global change. This region is influenced by multiple physical and socio-economic drivers and feedbacks, impacting both the natural and human environment. Air pollution is one such driver that impacts Arctic climate change, ecosystems and health but significant uncertainties still surround quantification of these effects. Arctic air pollution includes harmful trace gases (e.g. tropospheric ozone) and particles (e.g. black carbon, sulphate) and toxic substances (e.g. polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) that can be transported to the Arctic from emission sources located far outside the region, or emitted within the Arctic from activities including shipping, power production, and other industrial activities. This paper qualitatively summarizes the complex science issues motivating the creation of a new international initiative, PACES (air Pollution in the Arctic: Climate, Environment and Societies). Approaches for coordinated, international and interdisciplinary research on this topic are described with the goal to improve predictive capability via new understanding about sources, processes, feedbacks and impacts of Arctic air pollution. Overarching research actions are outlined, in which we describe our recommendations for 1) the development of trans-disciplinary approaches combining social and economic research with investigation of the chemical and physical aspects of Arctic air pollution; 2) increasing the quality and quantity of observations in the Arctic using long-term monitoring and intensive field studies, both at the surface and throughout the troposphere; and 3) developing improved predictive capability across a range of spatial and temporal scales.
The article is available at the journal website.
Government’s analysis, assessment and research activities published a new policy brief “Finland’s Journey towards the Forefront of Responsible Arctic Development – Recommendations” by MERMAID-project researchers.
This Policy Brief presents an executive summary of the recommendations and measures for Finland’s journey toward responsible Arctic development, as identified in the MERMAID-project. The focus is on general issues and business, with a special focus on the maritime cluster and tourism sector. Furthermore, the Policy Brief contains a summary of the future scenarios constructed during the project. The consequences of the recommendations, the conditions for successful implementation, and risks have been analysed with respect to these scenarios.
MERMAID is part of the implementation of the 2014 Government plan for analysis, assessment and research.
Read the policy brief in English or in Finnish.
The latest issue of Idäntutkimus was published last month and is devoted to the Arctic. Several researchers of our team have contributed to the issue. Veli-Pekka Tynkkynen wrote an editorial titled “Venäjän arktisen uusi suunta?” (New direction of Russia’s Arctic?). Together with Daria Gritsenko he also co-authored an article “Arktinen Venäjän poliittisessa viestinnässä” (Arctic in Russian political communications). Hilma Salonen’s essay “Venäjän arktinen energia – tavoitteita ja realiteetteja” (Russian Arctic energy – goals and reality) can be read here.
More information on the issue is available on the Idäntutkimus website.
University of Helsinki