2002 ARCSS All-Hands Workshop | Overview
Seattle, WA
February, 2002
The National Science FoundationĂs (NSF) Arctic System Science (ARCSS)
Program held an All-Hands Workshop in Seattle,
Washington from February 20 to 23, 2002. Three
hundred members of the arctic research community came
together to share information and help plan the
future of the ARCSS Program.
The workshop began with a presentation by Jack Kruse,
outgoing ARCSS Committee Chair, that provided an
overview of the ARCSS Program structure, as well as
an outline of objectives for future ARCSS research.
Mike Ledbetter, Program Director for the NSF ARCSS
Program, then discussed the evolution of the Program,
emphasizing the integrative, coordinated, and
thematic approach to arctic system science that is
the hallmark of ARCSS. ARCSS Committee member Amanda
Lynch next introduced a basic process for moving from
current ARCSS knowledge to future ARCSS research; a
process that stresses the major discoveries, key
uncertainties and readiness for researching those
uncertainties, and priorities for integrative
research. Subsequent presentations by representatives
of the existing ARCSS components and emerging
research initiatives followed the same guidelines by
discussing major discoveries, key uncertainties and
readiness for research within these components. A
moderated panel followed with a discussion of the
broad thematic questions from the 1998 ARCSS science
plan, Toward Prediction of the Arctic
System. Those questions are:
- How will the arctic climate change over the next
10-100 years?
- How will human activities interact with future
global change to affect the sustainability of natural
ecosystems and human societies?
- How will changes in arctic biogeochemical and
hydrologic cycles and feedbacks affect arctic and
global systems?
- Are predicted changes in the arctic system detectable?
The presentations on day one directed workshop participants toward the primary goal of the All-Hands Workshop: sketching out the future direction of the ARCSS Program. The workshopĂs four working groups represent aspects of the future ARCSS Program:
- The Hydrologic Cycle and its role in Arctic and
Global Environmental Change (Arctic-CHAMP),
- Modes of Variability in the Arctic System
- Nearshore and Coastal Processes Initiative
- Biophysical Feedbacks and Transitions in the Arctic Regional System: Life Webs.
On the morning of day four the ARCSS committee members, along with ARCSS science management office directors, science steering committee chairs and working group leaders, met to begin reviewing the information presented during the All-Hands Workshop and to place the recommendations from the All-Hands Workshop in the context of the future ARCSS Program. The ARCSS Committee analyzed the areas of intersection and overlap identified throughout the workshop in the context of the five thematic ARCSS questions. The committee revised and refined the questions based on accomplishments and new priorities identified by the working groups. The refined questions, prefaced with a statement to establish the context, are:
- Are detected changes predictable?
- How do human activities interact with changes in the arctic to affect the sustainability of ecosystems and societies?
- How will changes in arctic cycles and feedbacks affect arctic and global systems?
The ARCSS Committee and ARCUS staff would like to thank all of the participants and contributors for an informative and productive community workshop. The results of the workshop and information about the ongoing implementation of recommendations will be available on this web site.