The need for well coordinated and sustained international arctic observing networks that meet scientific and societal needs has been identified by the Arctic Council, as well as by a large number of scientific meetings and reports. Many new observing activities will be undertaken during the International Polar Year (IPY). The series of three workshops during the IPY will address the foundations for future sustained arctic observation networks and their linkages to societal needs.
The overall goal for the succession of workshops is to improve ccoordination and to promote sustained, integrated arctic observing networks that provide free, open and timely access to high quality data that realize broad societal benefits throughout the Arctic and around the World. That is, Arctic observing data will contribute to scientific research, data product development, forecasting and prediction for the purpose of improved decision-making and policy development and implementation.
The workshops will review societal needs and address the following key questions:
1) What Arctic observing sites, systems and networks currently exist?
2) What spatial, temporal and disciplinary gaps exist?
3) How will gaps be filled and the observation effort sustained?
4) How are these activities to be coordinated and integrated?
5) How can free, open and timely access to data be achieved?
Workshop aim and format
The First of the three workshops, to be held in Stockholm will address the question: Are current data collection and information management activities concerning the Arctic environment sufficient to meet user needs?
The plenary sessions will focus on user needs in the areas of:
- Climate and Weather
- Human Health and Well-being
- Biodiversity and Ecosystems
- Social and Economic Development
- Data and Information Management
The plenary sessions will be supplemented by thematic break-out sessions in the following fields of science:
- Atmosphere
- Ocean/Ice
- Hydrology/cryosphere
- Terrestrial ecosystems
- Human dimensions
Contributions are welcomed as posters. The outcome of the workshop will be summarised in a workshop report. In addition, abstracts from posters and invited talks will be compiled to a publication which will be made available online at this web page.
