European Arctic Initiatives Compendium

Julkaistu versi

Towards a better use of arctic marine infrastructure: EU-PolarNet, EUROFLEETS2 and ARICE

The Polar Regions may seem remote, but the observed rapid changes now affecting both the Arctic and Antarctic regions have resulted in significant consequences for the weather and climate in lower latitudes, including Europe. Environmental changes being observed, particularly in the Arctic, are a clear indication of the impending shifts that will increasingly affect European environment, society and industry. Changes in the Polar Regions present societal challenges, but also economic opportunities for Europe and the world. Science is a vital tool in understanding what is driving the rapid changes being observed at high latitudes. Research is also necessary to make our climate models and forecasting more realistic by identifying and reducing important sources of uncertainty that may impair reliable prediction. However the scale of many of the questions being posed is now recognised as being beyond the capabilities of individual nations and strong international cooperation is needed to overcome these challenges. There is often a need to obtain data from geographically widely separated areas of the Polar Regions and these need complementary observational schemes to be implemented for valid inter-comparisons. Similarly the costs of operating infrastructure in Polar Regions are becoming increasingly challenging and there is a need therefore to cooperate on infrastructure access and shared costs to optimise the support of larger research programmes. The presentation will introduce three European projects: EU-PolarNet, EUROFLEETS2 and ARICE which actively work on improving infrastructure development and access in the Polar Regions in cooperation with international partners. The examples given are from the Arctic Ocean but similar models of transnational access and infrastructure sharing will apply for the Antarctic.Peer Reviewe

Gap Analysis Report

Julkaistu versi

Report of the panel on international programs

The panel recommends that NASA participate and take an active role in the continuous monitoring of existing regional networks, the realization of high resolution geopotential and topographic missions, the establishment of interconnection of the reference frames as defined by different space techniques, the development and implementation of automation for all ground-to-space observing systems, calibration and validation experiments for measuring techniques and data, the establishment of international space-based networks for real-time transmission of high density space data in standardized formats, tracking and support for non-NASA missions, and the extension of state-of-the art observing and analysis techniques to developing nations