Activity Description:

The cumulative effects of Arctic climate change and expanding infrastructure have received relatively little scientific research despite increasing evidence that anthropogenic activities and climate change are interacting in complex ways to alter large areas of the Arctic and the communities and industries that live and work there.

During the ICARP III-decade 2014–2023, the IASC-endorsed "Rapid Arctic Transitions due to Infrastructure and Climate change (RATIC) initiative resulted in eight RATIC workshops and meetings at Arctic Science Summit Weeks (ASSWs), a series of Arctic Infrastructure Science Talks, and several Arctic RATIC-related papers published in a T-MOSAiC special issue of Arctic Science.

Research on RATIC-related themes needs to continue into the next decade. For ICARP IV, we propose: (1) a white paper to the ICARP IV Steering Committee titled "Review of the cumulative effects of Arctic infrastructure and climate change and adaptation strategies"; (2) a science session for ASSW 2025 devoted to RATIC-related themes, and (3) a 2-day RATIC workshop.

The white paper and workshop would:

• emphasize the need for a union of the social- and natural-sciences to study the cumulative consequences of infrastructure expansion and climate change to Arctic social-ecological systems;
• develop an interdisciplinary IASC Infrastructure Action Group or other appropriate body of interdisciplinary scientific expertise that includes interested members from all IASC working groups, APECS, and the broader international community of infrastructure-related social and natural scientists, engineers, land-use planners, residents of Arctic communities, and Arctic industries; and
• identify scientific goals that can be achieved in the next decade that include but are not limited to: (a) developing a network of infrastructure—climate-change observatories; and (b) establishing a set of protocols to measure and monitor the effects of infrastructure and climate change so that the results can be compared across different climate, geo-ecological, and socio-economic settings.

Website: https://www.geobotany.uaf.edu/ratic/

Main Organiser: 

Donald A. "Skip" Walker and Jana Peirce (University of Alaska Fairbanks, USA), Olga Povoroznyuk and Peter Schweitzer (University of Vienna, Austria); Howard Epstein, University of Virginia (USA); Ming Xiao (Pennsylvania State University, USA); Annett Bartsch (b.GEOS, Koenensburg, Austria); Vera Kuklina (George Washington University, USA)

Type of Activity:

• Workshop,
• Webinar,
• Project,
• Science sessions,
• White paper

Dates and Locations: 

• Workshop during the ASSW 2025 / ICARP IV Summit 2025 in Boulder, Colorado, USA from 20 - 28 March 2025.

   

• The extended Infrastructure-related activity would occur during the next 10 years as part of ICARP IV science plan

Open / Closed Activity:

In-Person, Open

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Activity Description:

Vegetation is a key indicator of Arctic terrestrial change. Priority terrestrial science topics for ICARP IV require improved circumpolar maps and knowledge of the Arctic vegetation and environmental controls to monitor and model changes to biodiversity; biomass and changing greening patterns; soil carbon stocks and emissions; effects to distribution patterns of water, snow, and permafrost; cumulative impacts of infrastructure and climate change; impacts to indigenous livelihoods; and global climate and ocean circulation patterns.

We bring together several inter-related Arctic Vegetation Science tasks to develop a coordinated approach to archive, classify, map, and analyze Arctic vegetation, with an eye toward IPY 2032/2033:

1. Develop a Circumpolar Arctic Vegetation Science Group to work with other Arctic Terrestrial groups and initiatives to coordinate approaches to sample, describe, monitor, and analyze Arctic vegetation, and to develop the next generation of Arctic vegetation scientists.
2. Update the Pan Arctic Species List to include latest additions and changes to nomenclature for vascular plants, mosses, liverworts, and lichens;
3. Develop standards and protocols for plot-based vegetation and environmental sampling at multiple scales, using traditional ground-based approaches and new technology, such as drone-based images, very-high resolution satellite imagery, LiDAR, artificial intelligence, and advanced pattern-recognition methods.
4. Continue to rescue legacy plot data sets; complete regional vegetation-plot archives and classifications in Arctic Alaska, Canada, Greenland, Europe, and Russia; and complete unification of the regional archives and classifications into a Circumpolar Arctic Vegetation Archive (AVA) and Classification (AVC) with crosswalks to national approaches.
5. Continue to revise the Circumpolar Arctic Vegetation Map (CAVM) based on new information; and revive the Circumboreal Vegetation Mapping (CBVM) effort to make a map of the northern boreal subzone, focusing on treeline to join the Arctic and northern Boreal regions in a single vegetation map.

Main Organiser: 

Donald A. "Skip" Walker (University of Alaska Fairbanks, USA)

Type of Activity:

• Workshop,
• Webinar,
• Project,
• Research activity for ICARP IV decade ( 2025-2034)

Dates and Locations: 

• Workshop / Sessions during the ASSW 2025 / ICARP IV Summit 2025 in Boulder, Colorado, USA from 20 - 28 March 2025.

• The extended activity between 2025 and 2034

Open / Closed Activity:

In-Person / Online, Open

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Activity Description:

The IARPC Atmosphere Community of Practice will host a series of webinars this spring (January-April) to raise US Arctic research community awareness of the ICARP-IV process and provide a platform for research presentations related to some of the Research Priority Teams (Topics 1, 2, and 7).

Main Organiser: 

Gijs de Boer, Barry Lefer (University of Colorado, NASA, USA)

Type of Activity:

• Webinar,

Dates and Locations: 

• 23 January 2024; 26 February 2024; 2 April 2024 

Open / Closed Activity:

Online, Open

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Activity Description:

The Fourth International Conference on Arctic Research Planning (ICARP IV) is an international effort to develop Arctic research priorities and ideas for their implementation for the coming decade. This involves an inclusive engagement process spearheaded by the International Arctic Science Committee (IASC), collecting input from all Arctic stakeholders and interested parties. An important group in this process are early-to-mid-career researchers. IASC FOX (IASC Fellows’ Ongoing X-change) is a network of early-to-mid-career researchers with a strong connection to the work and goals of IASC. Their scientific knowledge as well as their detailed understanding of the IASC Working Groups and the international relations of IASC, makes the IASC FOX members a valuable resource for the ICARP IV engagement process. To coordinate the efforts of the IASC FOX members and bolster the work of the ICARP IV research priority teams a workshop will be organized in late spring/early summer 2024 at the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge, UK. The workshop has the goal to discuss and focus the ideas of the IASC FOX members for research priorities and their implementation within the different topic areas of ICARP IV. The results will be summarized in the form of a report, which will be communally developed at the workshop and submitted to the ICARP IV resources. The workshop will not only benefit the development of the research priorities for the coming decade but will also strengthen and ensure the continued connection of IASC FOX members with IASC and the outcomes of ICARP IV. This is an important aspect, considering that the IASC FOX generation will likely be those researchers promoting and conducting the work identified as part of ICARP IV.

Main Organiser: 

Amanda Burson (British Antarctic Survey, UK), Greta Wells (University of Iceland, Iceland), Alison Perrin (Yukon University, Canada), Helene Angot (Universite Grenoble Alpes, France), Megan Wilcots (University of Minnesota, USA), Henrieka Detlef (Aarhus University, Denmark)

Type of Activity:

• Workshop

Dates and Locations: 

• 5 - 7 June 2024 in British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge, UK

Open / Closed Activity:

Hybrid, Closed / By Invitation Only

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