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Acute emergencies have been neglected in efforts to understand and respond to the transformational climatic changes underway in the Arctic. Across the circumpolar north, social-technological changes, extreme weather, and changing ice conditions threaten lives and infrastructure, increasing the risk of mass casualty incidents (MCIs), particularly as they impact transportation systems including global shipping, aviation, and community use of semi-permanent trails on the ice, land, and water. The Arctic is an inherently dangerous environment to operate in, and due to living in permanent settlements and the uptake of mechanised modes of transportation and navigation technologies, people’s exposure to risks has changed. In responding to potential MCIs, emergency response systems face challenges due to remoteness, weather, and changing environmental conditions. We examine emergency response capacity in the Arctic, focusing on search and rescue and using examples from Canada and Greenland, identifying opportunities for enhancing emergency response as part of climate adaptation efforts.

This paper examines search and rescue and backcountry medical response constraints in the Canadian Arctic and potential for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) to aid in response and preparedness. Semi-structured interviews (n = 18) were conducted with search and rescue responders, Elders, and emergency management officials to collect data on current emergency response and potential for UAV use. UAV test flights (n = 17) were undertaken with community members. We analyzed five years of weather data to examine UAV flight suitability. Numerous challenges face Arctic search and rescue and backcountry emergency response. Changing social and environmental conditions were described as increasing vulnerability to backcountry emergencies. Responders desired additional first aid and emergency training. Legal and weather restrictions were found to limit where, when and who could fly UAVs. UAVs were demonstrated to have potential benefits for hazard monitoring but not for SAR or medical response due to legal restrictions, weather margins, and local capacity. We find that communities are ill-prepared for ongoing SAR demands, let alone a larger disaster. There are numerous limitations to the use of consumer UAVs by Arctic communities. Prevention of backcountry medical emergencies, building resilience to disasters, and first responder training should be prioritized over introducing UAVs to the response system.

Vulnerability to climate change is a product of biophysical and social dynamics. Assessments of community or regional vulnerability, however, often focus on quantitative infrastructure and environmental assessments, or qualitative assessments of a community’s social dynamics and livelihood activities. A dearth of integrated quantitative assessments is a major barrier for decision makers who require quantitative outputs and indicators, which can measure where vulnerability is most severe and can be linked to climate projections. Our framework and analysis helps address such gaps by identifying variables to build climate change vulnerability indices, which we pilot here focusing on Inuit communities in the Canadian Arctic. We start with a systematic literature review of community-based vulnerability studies and assess relationships among 58 social and biophysical variables. We then use multiplex network analysis to determine how social and environmental variables interact among and within the key component of vulnerability: exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity. We identify several structurally important variables that interact within and across the three dimensions of vulnerability. This method is transferable as an integrative means of understanding not only the direct causes of vulnerability, but also relations that are less tangible. The approach of multiplex network analysis can be a building block to ongoing development of vulnerability indices within the human dimensions of climate change field.

It is important to understand how physical changes in Polar regions influence social systems and populations. Here the authors develop an Arctic Climate Change Vulnerability Index focusing on aviation and marine infrastructure in future climate scenarios and show that transportation system vulnerability varies across the region depending on modeled hazards and transportation infrastructure types.

Introduction: Emergency department (E.D.) visits and hospitalization patterns shifted dramatically during the 2021 extreme heat event (EHE) across the Greater Vancouver Area of southern British Columbia, Canada. Methods: In this ecological timeseries study we analyze E.D. visits (n=36,432) and hospitalizations (n=18,624) between June 4th, 2021, and July 29th, 2021, using data from two administrative databases: (1) the Canadian National Ambulatory Care Reporting System; and (2) and the Canadian Discharge Abstract Database data. Using Mann-U Whitney tests, we compared how E.D. visits, hospitalizations, and patient diagnoses changed during a seven-day EHE and two subsequent lag periods compared to the surrounding baseline period. We also use a distributed lag non-linear model to analyze the relationship between daily maximum temperatures and daily E.D. visits during the study period. Results: We observed a statistically significant increase in overall E.D. visits during the EHE and during the week following the EHE, and a positive relationship between daily maximum temperature and relative risk of an E.D. visit. Further, there were significant increases in critically ill patients presenting to the E.D. during the EHE, based on Canadian Triage Acuity Scale (CTAS) and increases in key diagnoses, including acute kidney failure, heatstroke, and dehydration. Conclusions: Heatwaves have significant impacts on public health and acute care systems beyond heat-related deaths. Complications associated with heat exposure and surges in patient volume have implications for internal medicine, emergency medicine, and psychiatry departments. Better understanding the disease patterns associated with extreme heat events is essential to health system planning and response.