RACER (Rapid Assessment of Circumarctic Ecosystem Resilience)



Posted on 24 April 2012  | 
Download the RACER handbook

The 'RACER' (Rapid Assessment of Circumarctic Ecosystem Resilience) project is a tool to help governments and communities around the Arctic safeguard the functioning ecosystems people depend on from the environmental disruption caused by climate change.

The handbook outlines RACER's two-step approach:
  1. Identify and map features that are likely to help ecosystems cope with change. Those features and areas are marked by two indicators, diversity (different kinds of life) and productivity (abundance of life).
  2. Assess forecasted climate impacts for those places and their likely ability to function in future Arctic climate change conditions until the year 2100. 
RACER is necessary because sweeping climate-driven change is coming to the Arctic. The region is affected by global climate change more than most other places on the planet. Over the last 50 years the Arctic has warmed at almost twice the rate of the global average. Arctic places and species are already affected by the change in climate which is quickly becoming the dominant threat to the viability of arctic ecosystems.
Front cover of the RACER Handbook.
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