Report on IASC CWG at ASSW 2024
Reported by Nozomu TAKEUCHI (Chiba University), Teruo AOKI (NIPR)
Related Research Program: Cryosphere
Annual meeting of the Cryosphere Working Group (CWG) of the International Arctic Science Committee (IASC) was held on 22 March 2024 during the Arctic Science Summit Week 2024 (ASSW 2024). The ASSW 2024 was held in Edinburgh, Scotland, UK, with hybrid online access (Zoom). At the beginning, a total of about 40 participants including the CWG young fellows and group members from each country were introduced. Dr. Hiroyuki Enomoto (NIPR) attended in person, and Drs. Teruo Aoki (NIPR) and Nozomu Takeuchi (Chiba Univ) attended the meeting by online as the CWG representatives from Japan. Dr. Masahiro Minowa (Hokkaido Univ) was introduced as a new CWG representative of Japan.
Each nation reported major Arctic science research in the past year, which appeared to become significantly active after the COVID-19 pandemic. Updates of ICARP IV preparations were reported by a member. We discussed new CWG science foci and work plans, following to the IASC Strategic Plan 2023-2026. As the revised science foci, past, current, future states of the Arctic cryosphere, Cryosphere hazards and extremes, Cryosphere-biosphere processes, Human impact of the changing cryosphere are proposed and will continue to be discussed. In the meeting, we shared and discussed the annual activities and budgets of CWG in 2023 and 2024, and made decisions of financial supports to the total of 13 proposals of cross-cutting activities and 2 of CWG activities of the IASC. Finally, the new chair and co-chairs of CWG for the next two years were elected in the meeting.