Arctic Freshwater Synthesis Project Update
- contributed by Arvid Bring and Johanna Mård Karlsson, Stockholm University, project co-leads
There is increasing scientific recognition that changes to the Arctic freshwater systems has produced, and could produce even greater, changes to bio-geophysical and socio-economic systems of special importance to northern residents and also produce some extra-arctic effects that will have global consequences. To address such concerns, a scientific synthesis is being conducted that focuses on assessing the various Arctic freshwater sources, fluxes, storage and effects. Notably, most of these are directly or indirectly controlled by cryospheric components and processes.
The Arctic Freshwater Synthesis (AFS) is structured around five major components: atmosphere, ocean, terrestrial hydrology, terrestrial ecology and resources, with modeling as a sixth cross-cutting component. The AFS is currently being developed with scientific and financial support from the World Climate Research Program’s Climate and Cryosphere Project (CliC), the International Arctic Science Committee (IASC), the Arctic Council’s Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program (AMAP), the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Norwegian Ministry of Climate and Environment.
Publication plans for the AFS include a number of reports tailored to the scientific foci of the individual participating organizations, and to a suite of scientific-journal review papers. Research needs identified by the AFS are also to act as benchmarks for the upcoming International Conference on Arctic Research Planning III, planned for 2015 and will form the basis for policy recommendations to be presented to the Arctic Council.
So far, the project has involved two meetings of scientific co-leads that are responsible for each component. Writing teams for each component have been formed, and first-order drafts of each review paper have been finished. Next steps involve meetings and continued work for each component writing team to produce the final texts.
For further information contact the project leads: Terry Prowse, Arvid Bring, Johanna Mård Karlson.
We are pleased to announce that the Joint Scientific Committee (JSC) for the 
Dr. Shichang Kang is a Professor and Director of the State Key Laboratory of Cryospheric Sciences, Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). Dr. Kang has been awarded the "Talent Project" of CAS and National Science Foundation of China for Distinguished Young Scholars. He has been a PI or co-PIs for more than 40 projects, and has organized more than 30 expeditions in the Tibetan Plateau including several 7000+ meter expeditions. He has supervised more than 20 PhD and Master students. Dr. Kang is the associate editor of Atmospheric Research, and a member of Education and Capacity Building of IUGG. Dr. Kang mainly focuses on glacier and climate changes, environmental chemistry of snow/ice and atmosphere, and paleo-climate and environmental variability recovered by ice core records in the Tibetan Plateau. He has published more than 300 peer-reviewed papers, with more than 150 papers published in international journals.
Hydrometeorological Institute and Ph.D. (also in meteorology) from MGO. Tatiana’s research interests include climate modeling, climate change and variability in extratropics, cryospheric processes. She is an expert in terrestrial processes modeling (including permafrost). Tatiana was a contributing author to IPCC WGI AR4 (2007) and IPCC WG1 AR5 (2013), an author and lead author of Russian national first (2008) and second (2014) climate assessments. She is a member of WG27 PICES: “North Pacific Climate variability and Change” (PICES- The North Pacific Marine Science Organization) and a member of the Russian National Committee for CliC.
The August Sea Ice Outlook (SIO) report is now available at: 
In June 2014 CliC supported the Permafrost Young Researchers Workshop 2014 (
The CliC Office is happy to welcome Gwénaëlle Hamon to our team for the remainder of 2014. Gwen will work on various CliC activities but will more specifically help the team with the Arctic Freshwater Synthesis Project in preparation for the 3rd International Conference on Arctic Research Planning (ICARP III). Gwen holds a Master’s degree in Ecology and Environmental Studies from the University Paris-Sud XI in France where she is from. Gwen worked for more than four years for the Global Ocean Forum, an NGO dealing with international marine policy issues based at the Center for Marine Policy of the University of Delaware in the USA. She had a central role in the NGO in terms of project management and science coordination. Before that Gwen worked at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris as an intern working on scientific research and commercial uses of marine genetic resources. Gwen is currently on contract here in Tromsø until mid-December.