The 1st General Assembly of the European project “Ice, Climate, Economics – Artic Research on Change” (ICE-ARC) took place from Nov 19 to 21 at the ICM.
The 1st General Assembly of the European project “Ice, Climate, Economics – Artic Research on Change” (ICE-ARC) took place from Nov 19 to 21 at the ICM.
This 4-years long FP7 EU-project will look into the current and future changes in the Artic sea ice but also will investigate the consequences of this changes both on the economics of the area, and it social impact on the indigenous people living on the Artic. ICE-Arc brings together physicists, chemists, biologists, economists, and sociologists from 21 institutes of 11 countries across Europe. With a total budget of 11,5 million euros, ICE-ARC is currently one of the largest research investments of Europe in order to understand and quantify the multiple stresses involved in the change being experienced by the Artic marine environment.
ICE-ARC places a particular focus on the rapid retreat and collapse of the Artic sea-ice cover, specially evident during the northern hemisphere summer. The complete loss of summer sea-ice may occur in a very short period of time –years to decades. The reduction, however, is not restricted just to summer: there is also a significant reduction of sea-ice extent in all seasons, which, if continued, will result in a longer ice-free season. The outcome of the project will be a better understanding of, and ability to predict, Artic marine change. This will provide an improvement in the scientific baseline for guiding EU and international policies for the protection of the Artic marine environment, at a time of increased socio-economic pressure, especially in terms of resource exploitation.
The ICM-CSIC team participating in ICE-ARC is jointly lead by Pedro Elosegui and Marcos Portabella. The team is responsible of the development and deployment in the Artic of high-precision GPS autonomous platforms for the monitoring of sea ice dynamics and the physical oceanography of the surface layer.
Project website: http://www.ice-arc.eu/
More information about the meeting in Barcelona: http://www.ice-arc.eu/2014/07/23/ice-arc-general-assembly/