ARCPATH Data Catalogue

The Arctic is of fundamental importance in the climate system because of the key atmospheric and oceanic feedbacks that occur here. Added to this, global warming has caused intense changes in Arctic climate, with a rise in temperatures during recent years that is close to twice that of other regions. These rapid changes are a challenge to communities already at risk from many other aspects that have to do with society as whole, in particular with regard to economic and political factors, as well as climatic effects.

The objective of ARCPATH is to:

  • Combine improved regional climate predictions with enhanced understanding of environmental, societal, and economic interactions in order to supply new knowledge on Arctic "pathways to action".

ARCPATH creates a Network Centre of Excellence (NCoE) that will focus on issues that are crucial for both Nordic countries, and globally, with an overarching goal of fostering responsible and sustainable development. Evidence for the significant changes currently occurring in the Arctic has become overwhelming, and covers many scientific disciplines spanning climatology and sea-ice studies, as well as the documentation provided by fieldwork with local communities and their inhabitants in the Nordic Arctic. A key issue is diminishing sea-ice- extent and resulting impact on society. Loss of sea ice in particular has a direct and immediate consequence for Arctic communities in the form of increased shipping and oil and gas exploration, together with direct and indirect effects on fisheries and marine mammals.

After establishing four Centres of Excellence under the Joint Nordic Initiative on Arctic Research (https://www.nordforsk.org/programs/responsible-development-arctic-opportunities-and-challenges-pathways-action) programme, NordForsk issued a second call for Open Science projects linked to these centres. Partners in ARCPATH responded to this call, resulting in a new project called “E-ARCPATH - the Open Science pilot for the ARCPATH NCoE”.

E-ARCPATH is aimed at broadening and strengthening the dissemination activities in ARCPATH by establishing a data catalogue offering open access to datasets generated in the Centre of Excellence, and by organizing a dedicated ARCPATH session at EGU 2019 to present obtained results to a wide international scientific community. The current data catalogue is implemented in E-ARCPATH, facilitating access to selected ARCPATH datasets (https://catalog-arcpath.nersc.no/dataset/)as well as information on the session Climate Variability and Prediction in High Latitudes (https://catalog-arcpath.nersc.no/pages/outreach) held at EGU 2019.