Be a leading contributor to Arctic, sub-Arctic and extreme environment knowledge creation.
UMF mission
UMF science, communication and education activities will be highly valued internationally by scientists, government, industry and society for our leading contributions to the sustainable development of resilient, productive ecosystems.
Environmental Grand Challenges of relevance to UMF
Global warming is happening three times faster in the Arcticthan in the rest of the world. This combined with significant freshwater influx to the marine environment,in part driven by increasing temperatures, will create an extreme environment for organismal and biogeochemical functions and services.
Climate change is also accompanied by extreme events, including marine heatwaves, which occur against a backdrop of rising temperatures. These provide an added stressor to marine ecosystems and biogeochemical processes. While some organisms and biologically driven cycles may acclimatise or adapt to gradual climate change, extreme climatic events provide a more severe challenge to those systems.
Warming is opening up the Arctic and sub-Arctic to increased use and exploitation by both industry and habitation. In the context of the extreme environment created by climate change, at present it is difficult to project how marine ecosystems and the services they provide will respond to these multiple stressors.
The sustainable use of marine resources is central to sustainable development. In a changing Arctic and sub-Arctic, sustainable development is likely to present challenges not present at lower latitudes due to the complex multiple stressor environment created by the backdrop of increased climatic and other anthropogenic stressors on marine systems.
