In recent years the concept of capacity-building or capacity development has evolved to help policymakers frame crucial questions about how sustainability can be achieved. However, like sustainable development, capacity-building proves difficult to define, as it encompasses human, technological, educational, organisational, scientific, cultural, financial, and institutional aspects. This article suggests that capacity-building is an approach to sustainable development, its main goal being to enhance the capabilities of people and institutions to improve their skills and abilities to solve problems, define their needs, and strengthen their prospects for achieving sustainable livelihoods. Capacity-building is now a key objective for the Arctic Council — indeed, the Council sees it as a necessary element for both the achievement of sustainable development and for co-operation at circumpolar and wider international levels. The Arctic Council has charged its Sustainable Development Working Group to draft a capacity-building implementation strategy. The overall aim of a capacity-building implementation strategy will be to enhance the Arctic Council's own effectiveness in managing its own structures and developing programmes and activities, and also to shape a capacitybuilding role for the Council in international affairs. This article offers some perspectives on the kinds of critical issues an Arctic Council capacity-building strategy should be concerned with, such as skills, knowledge, well-being, gender equality, and the barriers to capacity-building for sustainable livelihoods. A test of the effectiveness of such a strategy will be how far it strengthens the capacity of the peoples of the Arctic to achieve sustainable livelihoods and how the Arctic Council can build its own capacity to be an enabling environment for Arctic voices to be heard in circumpolar and international contexts.

In a joint Nordic effort, a high-quality climate data set for the Nordic Arctic is established. The data set consists of monthly values from 20 stations in Greenland, Iceland, the Faeroes, and the Norwegian Arctic. The data set is made available on the web. Ten climate elements are included, and most of the series covers the period 1890–2000. The data series illustrate the large climatic contrasts in the Nordic Arctic, and demonstrate that parts of the region have experienced substantial climate variations during the last century. Despite increasing temperatures during recent decades, the present temperature level is still lower than in the 1930s and 1950s in large parts of the region. The pattern of long-term precipitation variations is more complicated, but in parts of the region the annual precipitation has increased substantially. At Svalbard Airport and Bjørnøya the annual precipitation has increased by more than 2.5% per decade during the twentieth century.

Variations in atmospheric circulation can account for most of the long-term positive trend in precipitation in the Norwegian Arctic, and also for the positive temperature trend from the 1960s. The positive temperature trend before 1930 and the negative trend during the following decades, are, however, not accounted for by the circulation models.

A study was made of methanol-extractable UV-B-absorbing pigments under enhanced UV-B treatment. UV-B-absorbing pigments in two common ectohydric mosses showed seasonal variation during the summer months. Pigment contents were highest in June, decreased in July, and thereafter remained unchanged until September. In Hylocomium splendens, a significant increase of pigments was observed at the end of the experiment. The intracellular localization of caffeine-stabilized flavonoids was manifested as dark electron-dense deposits in the cell walls and intracellular dark deposits in the cell plasma. The dark deposits in the cell walls of Pleurozium schreberi were located either in the outer part of the cell wall or in the middle lamellae of the wall structures. Hylocomium splendens had a stratified cell-wall structure, in which three dark electron-dense cell layers could be identified. Intracellular deposits were located in different parts of the cell, but electron-dense deposits were observed at the cell margins and in the proximity of the nucleus. Although certain cell ultrastructural disturbances (for example, lipid accumulation, chloroplast disintegration) in moss leaf cells were observed, the short-term UV-B treatment did not increase the intensity of the dark deposits.

A comparison of the population genetic structure of Armeria maritima in Iceland with an earlier study in Denmark was undertaken. Ten populations were sampled in Iceland for isozyme analysis. Most populations showed Hardy-Weinberg proportions, but a higher number than statistically expected possessed too many homozygotes. This could indicate a breakdown of the self-incompatibility system in some cases. Statistically significant differences in allelic frequencies among populations were observed but no positive correlation between genetic distance and geographic position was found. Gene diversity in Iceland was lower than in Denmark although the alleles occurring in Iceland were the same as those found in Denmark. Missing alleles were those found with lowest frequency in Denmark. It is suggested that A. maritima in Iceland has immigrated from the southern part of the distribution post-glacially, leaving behind the rare alleles.

Temperature and precipitation series from Svalbard for the period 1912–2000 were analysed. There was a statistically significant warming from 1912 to the 1930s, a cooling from the 1930s to the 1960s and a warming from the 1960s to present. There was a positive trend in the annual mean temperature during the period 1912–2000, but it was not statistically significant. Spring was the only season when a statistically significant warming was found. For precipitation, statistically significant positive trends during the period 1912–2000 were found on an annual basis and in all seasons except winter. Empirical downscaling was applied on the results from a global climate model to produce scenarios for monthly temperature and precipitation in Svalbard. The 2 m temperature was applied as predictor for temperature. For precipitation, a combination of temperature and sea-level pressure was used. The temperature scenario indicates a warming of about 1°C per decade in winter, and 0.3°C per decade in summer from 1961 to 2050. The projected increase in annual mean temperature is about five times the average warming rate from 1912 to present, and highly significant. The precipitation scenario also indicates that precipitation will increase significantly until 2050. The maximum increase was projected in spring precipitation; however, the trends in seasonal precipitation are quite uncertain.

The responses of Betula pubescens Ehr. (European white birch), B. pendula Roth (silver birch) and two provenances of Pinus sylvestris L. (Scots pine) to solar ultraviolet (UV < 400 nm) radiation were investigated in a UV-exclusion field experiment during the 1997–99 growing seasons in Finnish Lapland (68°N). The seedlings were grown from seed under UV-B exclusion (a clear polyester filter) and UV-B/UV-A exclusion (a clear acrylic plate) as compared to control treatment (a polyethene filter) and ambient plants (no plastic filter). The mean daily maximum solar biologically effective UV-B irradiance (UV-BE) was 88 mW m-2, 68 mW m-2, and 91 mW m-2 for 1997, 1998, and 1999. A number of growth and biomass variables, PSII (Photosystem II) efficiency, and total concentration of nitrogen were recorded during and/or at the end of the experiment. Exposure (191 d) to solar UV radiation over three growing seasons did not cause many statistically significant UV effects in the growth or biomass of the seedlings. The only significant impacts of UV exclusion were found in P. sylvestris provenance Enontekiö. During the first growing season, the UVB/ UV-A exclusion treatment significantly accelerated the height increment (18–20%) off. sylvestris, and in the same seedlings, the UV-B exclusion treatment resulted in significantly increased dry weight of one-year-old needles (45–57%) after the second growing season. These UV impacts could not be seen at the end of the experiment or in any other species. The low concentration of N in current foliage was related to increased dry weight, but not to solar UV radiation (control vs UV exclusion). The present study indicated that solar UV radiation had limited, but sometimes transient, impacts on the growth of tree seedlings in the sub-Arctic. Longer-term field studies are needed, however, in order to detect the cumulative characteristics of the UV responses.

The Arctic plays an important role in controlling the Earth's climate and ocean circulation. Studies of past climate conditions in high latitudes are important to understand this role more precisely. Clay mineralogy of sediments was detected to be comparative with cyclic changes in climatic conditions during the past 0.8 Ma in the northernmost Atlantic-Arctic gateway (Ocean Drilling Program, Site 911). Clay minerals are transported by sea ice, icebergs, glaciofluvially, or by ocean currents. Smectite is assumed to be transported predominantly during interglacial periods. Its content decreases from about 0.4 Ma to the present, which may indicate lesser eroded smectite in the provenance area, assumed to be mostly in the Laptev Sea. Illite is due to erosion from Svalbard during glacial periods, and shows a negative correlation with smectite. Chlorite is not a good climate indicator because of its high frequency in the northern regions. Zemlya Frantsa-Iosifa (Franz Josef Land) is the most likely source area of kaolinite and the output seems to have slightly increased from 0.5 to 0.4 Ma. The correlation of kaolinite and chlorite means coincidental sedimentation. Kaolinite and chlorite are negatively correlated with illite, which indicates transportation during the more open ocean conditions that prevailed between repeated Pleistocene glaciations.

This is the second in a series of biographies entitled ‘Children of the Golden Age,’ the purpose of which is to describe the background and contributions of significant living figures in polar research who began their scientific careers in the years following World War II. Born on 17 November 1926 in Burma, Charles Winthrop Molesworth Swithinbank attended Bryanston School in Dorset before joining the Royal Navy in 1944. He read geography at the University of Oxford and was named assistant glaciologist for the Norwegian-British-Swedish Expedition (1949–52). After completing his DPhil, he joined the Scott Polar Research Institute, where he studied ice distribution in the Northwest Passage. Moving to the University of Michigan (1959–63), he led three expeditions to the Ross Ice Shelf before becoming the first British exchange scientist with the Soviet Antarctic Expedition (1963–65). Returning to the Scott Polar Research Institute, he developed a glaciological programme that led to his appointment as chief glaciologist of the British Antarctic Survey. He became head of the Earth Sciences Division in 1974, a post he held until his retirement in 1986. Swithinbank's contributions to Antarctic science include studies of the deformation, flow, and thickness of glaciers and the interpretation of satellite imagery. He served as president of the International Glaciological Society (1981–84) and has received a number of honours and awards.