U.S. GEOTRACES Arctic Planning Workshop

U.S. GEOTRACES Arctic Planning Workshop
Dates: 29 September to 1 October 2010
Location: Washington DC, USA

Website of the Workshop: http://www.usgeotraces.com/html/arctic.html

The Report of the Workshop is available to download.

Overview

Since the inception of the international GEOTRACES Program, a strong interest has developed in carrying out GEOTRACES-related activities in the Arctic Ocean. The Arctic Ocean is at the epi-center of climate change, and changes there will ultimately be felt globally.  It constitutes less than 3 % of the World Ocean area and about 1% of the volume, but it is unique in several ways. About 10% of the global river run-off is delivered to the Arctic Ocean and about 30% of the world’s soil carbon is estimated to be stored in northern ecosystems within the Arctic catchment area. Effects due to a warming climate may have profound impact on the Arctic resulting in increased export of organic carbon and sediments to the Arctic Ocean. Arctic shelves constitute about 25% of the World Ocean shelf area and are among the shallowest in the world acting as an important regulator of the river export of organic carbon and TEIs to the central Arctic Ocean.

This interest has already led to several discussions and deliberations, including a GEOTRACES planning meeting held in Delmenhorst Germany in June 2009 which recognized the need for international collaboration to make future GEOTRACES efforts viable in this region.

In order to focus these discussions and to generate an action plan for future GEOTRACES activities between US investigators and international collaborators, a US Arctic GEOTRACES Planning Workshop will take place from Sept 29 to Oct 1, 2010 in Washington DC.

Agenda

The Agenda of the meeting is available to download.

List of participants

The List of Participants is available to download.

Other Information

Announcement.