AASCO is a high-level, high-profile international Arctic forum. As the Arctic has been warming twice as fast as the rest of the world, AASCO can play a leading role in the research with its new holistic and integrated understanding of climate change at the Arctic and outside the Arctic environments.

Climate change and the Arctic regions are under intensive international research. The measurements made under Arctic conditions are especially challenging. Therefore, the long-term and comprehensive measurements are even more valuable. One of the key messages of the AASCO meeting was that the further development of the Arctic research infrastructures in collaboration with different disciplines is of paramount importance.

“The future research should focus on the most challenging research questions, which are related to land-atmosphere-ocean feedbacks and to understanding these interactions and their impacts at the regional and the global context. At the same time there is a need to determine, how we best develop Arctic research infrastructures to meet data needs for the cross disciplinary research,” notes Academician Markku Kulmala from the Institute for Atmospheric and Earth System Research (INAR) at the University of Helsinki.

A new AASCO project for years 2020-2021, supported by the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation, gathered scientists from the US, Europe, Russia and China to discuss the most challenging Arctic scientific questions and data requirements. Keynote speakers in the event included President Tarja Halonen, Secretary General Petteri Taalas (WMO) and HSH Prince Albert II Monaco.

In His message the Sovereign Prince declared that “More than ever before, we need to open our eyes. We need science. We need to see and to understand those slow-moving, sometimes imperceptible, events that affect our Planet, especially its Polar regions, and what we need to put into action to counter them effectively, in order to safeguard the future.”

In 2021 AASCO will release a white paper on future research needs and focuses on the most challenging Arctic research themes on land- atmosphere -ocean interactions and feedbacks and to organize a virtual science conference on this topic.

The University of Helsinki, Finland coordinates AASCO. AASCO collaborates with UArctic, World Meteorological Organization (WMO), Sustainable Arctic Observations Networks (SAON), Svalbard Integrated Arctic Earth Observing System (SIOS), Institute of Remote Sensing and Digital Earth - Chinese Academy of Sciences (RADI - CAS), Moscow State University (MSU) and the Harvard Law School.

Fur­ther in­for­ma­tion

AASCO online meeting on 2-3 November 2020

Academician Markku Kulmala
+358 40 596 2311
markku.kulmala@helsinki.fi

Docent Hanna Lappalainen
+358 50 434 1710
hanna.k.lappalainen@helsinki.fi