Days of Future Past: Archives for Research and Learning

REGISTER HERE by 10th of March (12:00 EET). Refreshments will be provided.

1. Prof. Dr. Bethan Davies

https://www.ncl.ac.uk/gps/staff/profile/bethandavies.html

Accelerating loss of Alaskan Glaciers

Abstract: The Juneau Icefield, Alaska, lost ice at an accelerated rate after 2005, relative to the past 250 years. Rates of area shrinkage were found to be 5 times faster from 2015–2019 than from 1979–1990. The continuation of this trend could push glacial retreat beyond the point of possible recovery.

Climate-driven ice loss from glaciers and icefields has been shown to contribute to rising sea-levels, with Alaska expected to remain the largest regional contributor to this effect up to the year 2100. Alaskan glaciers are particularly vulnerable to changes in the climate because they are often top-heavy (with more area at a higher altitude) and located on plateaus. In addition, these factors make Alaskan glaciers more prone to threshold behaviour, in which exceeding a tipping point could result in an irreversible recession. Longer-term records of Alaskan glacier change are needed to understand how climate change impacts these glaciers.

We used historical records, aerial photographs, 3D terrain maps, and satellite imagery to reconstruct Juneau Icefield glacier behaviour over the past 250 years. We observed steady glacier volume loss at a rate of approximately 0.65 km3 per year between 1770–1979. This rate accelerated to approximately 3 km3 per year between 1970–2010 and then doubled to 5.9 km3 per year between 2010–2020. This ice loss acceleration between 2010–2020 was accompanied by a glacial thinning rate 1.9 times higher than that from 1979–2000 and increased icefield fragmentation. This reduction in icefield accumulation area is contributing to a positive feedback loop, including increasing glacier disconnection and fragmentation. Lowering albedo occurs where surfaces such as darker rock are increasingly exposed, reducing solar reflectivity, and further contributing to the recession.

The findings suggest that a physical mechanism are contributing to this icefield moving towards an irreversible tipping point in glacier recession. This greater understanding of Alaskan glacier ice loss mechanisms could improve projections of near-future sea level rise.

2. Prof. Dr. Cecilia Åsberg is chair of Gender, Nature, Culture at interdisciplinary Department of Thematic Studies (TEMA), Linköping University, Sweden and Founding Director of research incubator The Posthumanities Hub. Her postdisciplinary research spans feminist theory-practices in ecological, biological and technological humanities, arts and sciences. Åsberg founded the Swedish-international Environmental Humanities research programme, the Seed Box, in 2013 and has since devoted considerable efforts to intersections of waste and embodiment in the social sciences and humanities. For instance, questions around the cultural heritage of the waste of today, in waters, bodies and wounded landscapes, and how to become better ancestors for future generations inheriting climate change and loss of biodiversity. She directs the Posthumanities Hub, a feminist research group and a platform for the more-than-human arts of attending to the wounds and wonders of the world. Present projects range artistic AI, anthropocene heritage and military waste, forest politics and citizen environmental humanities, multispecies methodologies, and arts of soils and oceans.

Baltic Blues: Multispecies encounters and military waste in the archive of the Baltic Sea

Abstract: At the end of World War II, tens of thousands of tons of chemical warfare agents – mostly mustard gas – were dumped in the Baltic Sea. Decades later, these weapons are being reactivated – both literally (perhaps on the faces of dead seals, and in fishermen’s nets) and in our imagination as Russian hybrid warfare with oil tank extortions, electronic cable sabotage and military waste reappear on the news as very real ecological threats to the already hard-pressed and environmentally exposed Baltic Sea. In this story, that situates the Baltic Sea as an “archive” (see Ann Cvetkovich), militarization meets with environmental concerns, and Rob Nixon’s notion of “slow violence”. The past floats into the future, and humans and non-humans are equally implicated, in this feminist environmental posthumanities exploration of unknowns and alien encounters in the brackish setting of the Baltic Sea and its unfathomable underwater exposures.

3. Dr. Dina Roger is a Research Fellow in Cultural Studies at KU Leuven, Belgium. She is currently working on several projects, all based in the European Arctic: Svalbard, Iceland, Greenland, and the maritime spaces in-between them. Her interests range from embodied and mediated understandings of place to perceptions of disaster risk and how that impacts people’s behavior in the environment. Dina uses an identity-of-place framework and visual methods of inquiry.
In 2022, Dina received the Rachel Tanur Memorial Visual Sociology Award.
In 2023, Dina was awarded a Grímsson Fellowship to conduct work in Iceland.

Mattering the archive: entangled encounters of place/space/time in the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard

Dina works in cultural studies, focusing on memories and lived experiences, as well as non-human elements from both the past and present. The presentation will be based on a diffractive reading of archives, employing a multi-perspectival approach that emphasizes the need for multiple (and fluid) temporal and spatial scales. Grounded in an identity-of-place framework that de-centers the human, the presentation will unpack several projects situated at the intersection of place- and experience-based knowledge alongside human-made objects and other material elements, whether sourced from local archives or unarchived contexts.

The presentation will critically examine concepts of 'data' and 'data storage,' exploring how memories and lived experiences are or are not preserved. It will investigate the functions of archiving, the expectations of different time periods regarding archival purposes, and the implications of these practices. Through concrete examples, the presentation will address how objects—whether intentionally preserved, unruly, or decontextualized—are seen and framed. It will also delve into questions about what is included or excluded from archives, how these decisions shape perceptions of the past, and how they influence how future generations might perceive the present. Finally, it will interrogate the intended purpose and audience of archives.

4. Assoc. Prof. O. Cenk Demiroglu comes from the Department of Geography at Umeå University, Sweden. His research focuses on the interrelationships of climate change and tourism, and he has served as an expert to several relevant bodies such as the International Society of Biometeorology, the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East Climate Change Initiative, the Arctic Council, the Tourism Panel on Climate Change, and UN Tourism. Besides, he has taken active roles in several destination development projects and teaches tourism and geographical information systems related courses at the basic and advanced levels.

Tracks and pathways to ski tourism and the climate crisis

Abstract: Ski tourism is one of the most popular forms of ice-and-snow-based-tourism (IST), i.e. "cryotourism", catering to the wellbeing and recreation of millions of enthusiasts and the socioeconomic development of many communities especially within the peripheral and rural areas. Ski tourism is also one of the most immediately and the most impactfully affected tourism type by the ongoing climate crisis. As part of the global tourism system that is highly based on travels consuming fossil fuels, ski tourism is also one cause of the crisis itself. Here, Cenk will introduce us to a Web GIS (geographical information systems) application that visualizes and overlays ski tourism geographies, and related climate indicators in terms of both the impacts and the footprints observed and projected, setting an agenda for future research and action.

5. Dr. Emma Pomeroy (University of Cambridge)

6. Prof. Seppo Vainio (Kvantum Institute)