Responding to Change Workshop Planning Meeting Report
13 June 2010, Oslo, Norway
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On 13 June 2010, the International Study of Arctic Change (ISAC) held an open meeting to being the planning process for a workshop focused on Responding to Arctic Change. Responding to change is a key component of the ISAC science program as described in the ISAC Science Plan; the emphasis is on developing science for society - for problem solving and for managing and adapting to future arctic changes (www.arcticchange.org). Implementation of the Responding to Change component of ISAC is planned through a series of ongoing workshops. The planning meeting in Oslo was the first step in this initiative.
Twenty-four people attended the planning meeting and the discussion focused on the need for and feasibility of a pan-Arctic approach to responding to change, workshop goals, workshop topics, and alignment with similar national, regional, programmatic and project efforts. Participants agreed that responding to change is increasingly important and necessary. However, there is a need for conceptual clarity so that the community of arctic scientists understands what is meant by responding to change and what the role of science may be in that effort. Participants further agreed that there is a need to assess the extent to which science priorities align with stakeholder priorities including those relevant to observational and modeling initiatives developed during the last decade and over the course of the International Polar Year. In the absence of a framework that can be used to define and address priorities and emerging issues at the pan-Arctic scale, scientific and stakeholder collaboration on the relevant science is problematic and slow in coming to fruition.
