INTERACT Research and Monitoring Report 2020. D3.13. 2nd edition

Abstract

The Arctic is still an understudied part of the world, and restricted access or lack of infrastructure makes arctic research more complicated than elsewhere. Coordinating activities, implementing standards and data harmonization and sharing of data are therefore essential to make robust assessments and predictions for the Arctic and northern cold regions. In this report, INTERACT stations provide information on research activities at their stations, i.e. what disciplines are studied at the station and what variables are monitored on a ‘long-term’ scale. Stations have also provided information about what scientific networks and organisations they contributes to and we describe some of these global intergovernmental organisations, central circumarctic coordinating organisations, important Arctic Council working groups and selected scientific networks with standard protocols or data harmonization. The report can hence be a tool for station managers to identify networks that they could potentially contribute to, and for scientists and scientific networks to look for stations that could fill potential data gaps on their geographical coverage to improve robustness of their coordinated scientific efforts. At the end of the report, we present two INTERACT tools that facilitate access to the Arctic. 1. The INTERACT GIS tool that allows scientists to explore station facilities and their surroundings when looking for ideal study locations. 2. The INTERACT Access programme consisting of Transnational Access (physical access) to research stations, Remote Access (samples/data collected by station staff) and Virtual Access (online access to data sets).