First SEARCH Open Science Meeting
Additional Information and Request for Input
27-30 October 2003
The first open science meeting for the Study of Environmental Arctic
Change (SEARCH) will be held 27-30 October 2003 in Seattle, Washington.
The primary goal of the Open Science Meeting (OSM) is to inform a broad
research community about research that addresses the basic premise of
SEARCH, that there exists a complex of interrelated pan-Arctic changes
occurring across terrestrial, oceanic, atmospheric and human systems. We
anticipate that these results will inspire scientists from a large range
of disciplines to contribute to SEARCH either through linking their
ongoing work to this program or through the design of new projects.
Understanding the interdependence of these changes and their relation to
mid-latitudes represents a major research challenge, both in the
international and U.S. arenas. The Open Science Meeting will be a forum
for presentation and discussion of recent scientific findings that
document these large changes, as well as the exchange of new ideas that
will contribute to solving the questions posed by the observations.
The Monday - Wednesday, three-day meeting format will begin each morning
with several invited keynote talks, highlighting important and
provocative scientific issues. The afternoons will continue with four or
five two-hour parallel science sessions, which can be topical, regional,
or disciplinary. These sessions will be followed by poster sessions. The
science sessions are primarily to foster open discussion. The final
afternoon will end with a review of the science sessions. Evenings and
Thursday will provide an opportunity for short town meetings or other
information sharing or planning by specific research programs, agencies,
or groups.
We are soliciting suggestions from the research community on topics for
the morning keynotes and the afternoon parallel sessions. Please send us
your suggestions and recommendations by Friday, 18 April 2003.
The three morning sessions will be divided into the major themes of
Changes and Impacts, Feedbacks, and Drivers/Causes. Day one could
address information on topics such as sea-ice changes, tundra/greenness
changes, impacts on Northern Seas, how and why human systems are
changing. Day two might include such topics as carbon cycle, freshwater
cycle, cloud-radiation feedback, and stratospheric chemistry. Day three
could include the global thermohaline circulation, the role of CO2 in
driving Arctic atmospheric dynamics, and recent changes in the context
of historical and paleo-environmental records. These examples are
presented as ideas and possibilities not restrictive limitations. The
afternoon sessions provide an opportunity for expanded community
discussion of these or other topics.
The SEARCH OSM organizers wish to involve colleagues from the
international science community, as well as residents of the Arctic. We
encourage the international community and stakeholder communities to
participate in all conference activities from submitting suggestions and
recommendations in the planning phase to participating in keynote talks,
oral and poster presentations, discussion and observation at the
meeting. We hope to ensure broad participation from stakeholder
communities, young investigators, and other important constituencies.
We encourage involvement in the SEARCH Open Science Meeting by a large
cross-section of scientists. Please forward your ideas and suggestions
by Friday, 18 April 2003 to Jim Overland (overland [at] pmel.noaa.gov) and
Wendy Warnick (warnick [at] arcus.org). Mention SEARCH OSM in the subject
line.
You may pre-register for the meeting at
http://www.arcus.org/search/preregistration.html