Climate change makes it harder for militaries to carry out their tasks, and extreme weather can challenge the resilience of our military installations and critical infrastructure. Climate change shapes our environment, opening new shipping lanes that can contribute to increased political instability and geostrategic competition, as well as the need for riskier medical and rescue services.
Cold weather is therefore more relevant than ever, and it is more than “snow”. It also includes high altitude, northern latitudes, wet humid weather, extreme and harsh environments. This requires that the military is prepared to operate and perform in these environments, and to be able to deal with cold weather injuries.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has 3 core missions: collective defence, crisis management, and cooperative security. NATO highlighted climate and security in their new NATO Strategic Concept 2022.
The Science & Technology Organization (STO) is the primary NATO organisation for defence science and technology – to promote and conduct collaborative research and information exchange among NATO nations and partners. The NATO STO Human Factors and Medicine (HFM) panel’s mission is to provide science and technology to optimise health, human protection, wellbeing, and performance of the human in operational environments. The recent symposium and this subsequent Special Issue of the International Journal of Circumpolar Health is fulfilling NATO’s goal, and the mission of NATO STO and HFM.
The symposium provides the science basis for advice to military and political leaders to improve defence and security during cold weather operations and highlights the relevance of human performance research to medical treatment and support during cold weather operations.