Arctic
Arctic Cross-Copernicus forecast products for sea ice and iceBERGs (ACCIBERG)
Contrary to sea-ice state and forecasts, there is little information about icebergs available publicly except for the area around Newfoundland, Labrador Sea and the southern tip of Greenland. Even in these areas the mariners need improved iceberg detection and forecasts for safe transit and better route guidance on time scales ranging from hours to several days. Voyage planning usually starts months ahead by the selection of ship, season, and crew.
The complex and multi-stakeholder nature of today’s maritime domain, combined with contemporary technology developments such as global connectivity has the potential to facilitate significant data collection within a realm which has been relatively untapped until now. When applied to remote areas such as the Arctic and High North, this potential amplified as a result of the limited exposure these regions have had to modern technologies.
The goal of the ARCOS project is to design and implement an early-warning system named ARCOS (Arctic Observatory for Copernicus SEA Service) providing continuous monitoring of the Arctic region. Designed to generate actionable products in the security domain by processing and fusing multi-sensor data, the ARCOS system integrates available information from space, non-space sources and products available from Copernicus Services such as the Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service (CMEMS) and the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S).
Innovation platforms for Arctic and North Atlantic security: The provision of new research and innovation programmes contribute substantially to successful interactions between security and emergency response institutions in the Arctic and the North Atlantic (ANA). In this context, the EU-funded ARCSAR project aims to establish international best practice and propose innovation platforms within safety and security in the focus region.
The Arctic is more affected by climate warming than any other region. To monitor the ongoing changes, to predict the evolution of the climate system and to develop mitigation measures, we need a coherent system of Earth Observation.
The Arctic today faces extraordinary pressures, with globalisation and climate change combining to drive change at an unprecedented rate. The opening up of new economic sectors, including mining and mass tourism, alongside the industrialisation of many traditional livelihoods, such as fishing and forestry, are driving land use conflicts between competing sectors, and producing profound transformations on lives and communities at the economic, socio-cultural, political and environmental levels.
The ArcticHubs Project is an ambitious, multi-disciplinary international collaboration that aims to develop research-led, practice-based solutions to the urgent challenges faced in the Arctic
CHARTER is a research project that is funded by the European Union Horizon 2020 Programme. CHARTER grew out of a desire to better understand the processes that have been driving rapid climate and land use changes in the Arctic. The name comes from the project title: Drivers and Feedbacks of Changes in Arctic Terrestrial Biodiversity. The project started in August 2020 and will run for 4 years. CHARTER involves 21 research institutions across 9 countries (see the full list here). CHARTER is coordinated by the Arctic Centre, University of Lapland and the project leader is Research Professor Bruce Forbes.
ECOTIP is a flagship Horizon 2020 research project focusing on understanding and predicting changes in Arctic marine biodiversity and implications for two vitally important marine ecosystem services: fisheries production and carbon sequestration.
Running for the period 2020 to 2025, and led by the Technical University of Denmark (DTU), ECOTIP brings together leading scientists from 15 institutes across Europe, Japan and Canada.
The project combines state-of-the-art field and laboratory studies, analysis of historical and paleo-oceanographic data and trait-based modeling to predict the potential tipping points of key biological ecosystem functions in Arctic seas in the face of climate change and other pressures. ECOTIP works closely with fishing communities in Greenland and other stakeholders to understand the effects of biodiversity and ecosystem changes on society, and how best to reduce, mitigate and adapt to the changes.
EPOC will generate a new conceptual framework for the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation, to understand how it functions in the Earth system and impacts weather and climate. The AMOC is a key component of the climate system, responsible for ocean heat and freshwater transport, associated with the ventilation of anthropogenic carbon, and anticipated to experience or drive climate tipping points.
EuroGOOS identifies priorities, enhances cooperation and promotes the benefits of operational oceanography to ensure sustained observations are made in Europe’s seas underpinning a suite of fit-for-purpose products and services for marine and maritime end-users.
The Arctic plays a crucial role in regulating the earth’s climate. Hence, the impact of climate change on the Arctic has serious consequences to high latitude ecosystems and societies. The EU-funded FACE-IT project hypothesises that the biodiversity of Arctic coastal zones is changing in line with the rates of cryosphere changes. It also theorises that these changes impact local communities, food production, livelihoods & other ecosystem services.
