Report on IASC TWG at ASSW 2024
Reported by: Masaki UCHIDA (NIPR)
Tetsuya HIYAMA (Nagoya University)
Related Research Program: Land
The IASC Terrestrial Working Group meeting was held on March 22, 2024, at the University of Edinburgh, UK. It was a hybrid online and on-site event, with around 40 participants in the open session.
After reviewing the minutes and agenda, there were activity reports from each country. The USA has allocated over USD 100 million in grants to Navigating the New Arctic (NNA), one of the big ideas emphasized by the National Science Foundation (NSF). The NNA Community Office mentioned to facilitate interaction between researchers and members of the Arctic community. It is led by the University of Colorado, with the University of Alaska Fairbanks and Alaska Pacific University as partners. They also mentioned that a recent review of the Arctic Observing Network program would be released soon. It was informed that the Arctic and Taiga (Bonanza Creek) long-term ecological research sites are continuing. The Next Generation Ecosystems Experiment in the Arctic, led by the Department of Energy (DOE), had initiated Phase IV focusing on international collaboration and ‘running the model’ on diverse Arctic ecosystems. The UK is advancing research on the mycorrhizosphere, aiming to understand the effects of warming-induced changes in the mycorrhizosphere on soil carbon stocks. Other reports include research on the impact of Greenland ice sheet melting on water temperatures in surrounding lakes. They also introduced developments to promote research, including the UK-Japan Arctic Research Bursary Scheme, the UK-Greenland Arctic Bursary Scheme, and research schemes in the UK Arctic Council Working Groups.
Next, in anticipation of the Fourth International Conference on Arctic Research Planning (ICARP IV) and the International Polar Year (IPY), there was a discussion on the research that should be pursued by the Terrestrial Working Group. In previous meetings, the Terrestrial Working Group has listed research topics of importance and made recommendations, but this time it was envisaged that the members of the Terrestrial Working Group would be substantively involved in the research. Therefore, after introducing the research being conducted by the working group members, four research items were identified, and specific topics were discussed for each of them. This discussion is expected to continue in the future, as the meeting was only able to cover presentations from each item.