Global Earth Observations for the Arctic
Every 6 months a new forecast and the verification of the past season will be analyzed.
In short: It seems that an even warmer Arctic winter is ahead of us.
The Arctic Regional Climate Forum (Arc-RCC) is made out of three centers: North America (USA, Canada), Eurasia (Russia) and the Nordic countries (Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Iceland).
Check out the Arctic seasonal forecasts report.
Read more at https://www.arctic-rcc.org/
Helsinki hosted a wonderful Polar Data Forum. It was the third time ever and it had a new record audience at 150 participants in Forum sessions and over 30 extras in a closely related side-event. The first two days were packed with the conference having 36 presentations and 17 lightning talks. A great breadth of actions across the globe on three poles, technical for the most, but some even touching social matters. In conclusion we might say that in matters of data management remote areas of this world pay a lot of attention.
The next days two days 9 partly parallel sessions drilled practically into broad policy, detailed semantics and federated search topics. Sessions dedicated to data interoperability, Marine data, NASA Icesat2 mission and EU Polar data policy fleshed out progress and knowledge transfer in many directions. Attendance was in total about half of that of the conference, but most praise I heard afterwards came from this part.
Friday was then dedicated to business meetings of the Arctic Data Committee and the Standing Committee of Antarctic Data Management. They mixed at times to have actions well linked up. The ADC meeting sparked off a new direction for a potential new working group (currently Federated Search and Semantics): One for Analysis Ready Data from Earth Observation (=satellite data). Anyone is welcome to join, we especially hope anyone that is hosting Arctic EO data would join this group.
Thanks a bunch for everybody at Helsinki last week!
SAON developed a framework for assessing arctic observing networks in 2017 and FMI lead a project to use this framework in a value tree for meteorological and oceanographic networks as one of the last efforts in the Finnish chairmanship of the Arctic Council. The results can be viewed on the http://arctic-obs.fmi.fi/ site.
It is good to recognize that efforts in these disciplines for networks between 30°N and 60°N are five times greater than for networks north of 60°N – it’s 810 m€ compared to 178 m€ per year. The table below describes the amount of stations in 30° latitude slices of our Earth according to the WMO Oscar database and related to area of Earth.
| Latitude slice | total | WIGOS | co-sponsored | non-affiliated | area % | land % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 60°N-90°N | 2 218 | 1 352 | 853 | 13 | 6,53 | 3,04 |
| 30°N-60°N | 13 070 | 7 436 | 5 472 | 162 | 18,37 | 8,79 |
| 0°N-30°N | 8 062 | 2 820 | 5 222 | 20 | 25,1 | 6,81 |
| 0°S-30°S | 5 805 | 2 300 | 3 432 | 73 | 25,1 | 5,66 |
| 30°S-60°N | 4 120 | 917 | 3 199 | 4 | 18,37 | 0,91 |
| 60°S-90°S | 712 | 165 | 547 | 0 | 6,53 | 2,53 |
Comparing network densities between the most developed world in 30°N-60°N and the Arctic (>60°N), Arctic observing networks would need to be roughly doubled for the same level of information. Land-based networks a little less than monitoring over sea areas. The WMO global observing system WIGOS is largely land-based, while co-sponsored networks are mainly observing systems on the sea co-organized by WMO and IOC. Non-affiliated networks are stations from research organizations/universities.
Doubling the efforts for Arctic Observing networks seems pertinent for meteorology and oceanography. Other observing systems for biodiversity or pollution have not been analyzed, so also the expansion of the value tree exercise is necessary for a holistic view on Arctic Observing needs.
Welcome to this new site dedicated to actions from Sustaining Arctic Observing Networks to Group on Earth Observation. We will in the coming years have stories how Earth Observation information can help life in the Arctic.
The stories will come from pilot services developed in the E-Shape project that showcases EuroGEOSS, the new regional initiative of GEO for Europe. However this site is looking for anyone to offer their stories of environmental monitoring of our dear planet helping to solve real life challenges to people and nature in the Arctic.
If you want to contribute, tell us at root@arcticgeoss.org and we will add your story to this blog. We are looking for stories with rich information services using a wealth of monitoring information, but the main beef is the concrete benefit of this information.
We’re excited to kick this off!