Date: January 22, 2018
Venue: The Arctic Frontiers Conference (http://www.arcticfrontiers.com/), Radisson Blue Hotel, Tromsø, Norway
Link to the side-event on the Arctic Frontiers website: http://www.arcticfrontiers.com/program/session/?id=ASE002
Registration for the workshop is closed.
Background
Increasing uncertainty about future sea ice conditions presents a distinct challenge to industry, policymakers, and planners responsible for economic, safety, and risk mitigation decisions. The ability to accurately forecast the extent and duration of Arctic sea ice on different timescales provides significant implications for the operation of wide ranging Arctic maritime activities.
Current Status
The Arctic sea ice prediction community has advanced rapidly in the past decade with many new sea ice forecast products and services that are targeted for different user groups. However, it is still unclear how well end users are able to utilize these products and services into their planning. There is a need for better engagement with a broad range of Arctic stakeholders and a need to tailor new products and services to end user-specific requirements.
Workshop Goals
This workshop will bring together sea ice stakeholders and forecasters to:
1) Assess the value of forecasts by the user community.
2) Determine if and how ice forecasts are currently being used in decision making.
3) Communicate the relevant metrics needed by various stakeholders.
4) Identify where improvements in sea ice forecasts would help stakeholders make decisions.
5) Communicate the limits and opportunities of current forecasting systems.
Workshop Questionnaire
In preparation of the breakout group session of the workshop, we would like to get preliminary feedback on individual needs and the use of sea ice information from users and stakeholders attending this event. This will allow us to get an idea of how different users approach sea ice challenges in their daily operations which will be the focus of this workshop. We would like to use this information to optimize the group discussions, as well as encourage a more dynamic interactive workshop.
We would like to ask the participants to kindly fill out the following questionnaire (5 – 10 minutes) and answer all the questions that pertain to them.
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Participants
– Sea ice forecasting researchers
– Industry representatives (shipping, resource extraction, fishing, etc.)
– Ship operators
– Polar tourism representatives
– National / regional policy makers
– Local planners
Outcome
A stakeholder-targeted guidance document or roadmap, where sea ice forecasters can draw on the expertise of users (e.g. policy makers, planners, community leaders) to better understand how different stakeholder groups factor sea ice forecast information into their decision-making processes. The outcomes will result in an article intended for publication in a journal such as Eos (Earth & Space Science News).