Arctic Circle Assembly 2022

The 2022 Arctic Circle Assembly was held in Reykjavík, Iceland on 13-16 October with a record 2,000 participants from almost 70 countries and regions. With over 600 speakers, the sessions covered Arctic issues, changes due to the climate crisis, clean energy and many other relevant topics. The phrase “what happens in the Arctic does not stay in the Arctic” was often heard during the Assembly, referring to the global scale impacts of Arctic climate change.

During the Assembly, Arctic PASSION organized three sessions: the SAON ROADS process, the Permafrost Shared Arctic Variable (SAV) meeting, and the Wildfire SAV session. The concept behind the SAVs, the RNA CoObs project and the SAV work supported by Arctic PASSION Pilot Services were presented in the SAON ROADS session. Read more on these topics from the Arctic PASSION blog Highlights of Arctic PASSION at the Arctic Circle Assembly 2022.

The half-day Perfmafrost SAV meeting had excellent attendance, with good discussion and interesting presentations. One of the speakers was Candace Cockney, who introduced the exciting observation activities by Inuits in Tuktoyaktuk. The Frederik Paulsen Arctic Academic Action Award winners Hanne H. Christiansen and Marius O. Jonassen gave also a talk on their winning PermaMeteoCommunity project.

The Wildfire SAV theme session included an overview about Arctic wildfires, a talk from Delvin Fernandes from Gwich’in Council International, and introduction to Arctic PASSION work on Pilot Service 4 on PS4: ‘Integrated Fire Risk Management (INFRA)’ Service. Additionally, the Finnish Arctic wildfire preparedness project shared their experience on their Wildfire SAV expert panel initiation workshop, and what was learned and achieved during the discussions. The Finnish Wildfire SAV workhop received many praises and inspired enthusiasm, with future merging of other local Wildfire SAV initiation expert panels discussed.

The Arctic Circle Assembly 2022 was a great event with many interesting and inspiring talks, meetings and exhibitions. We thank all the speakers and organizers and look forward to the next years Assembly!