The Circumpolar Biodiversity Monitoring Program (CBMP) is a global network working together to harmonize and integrate efforts to monitor the Arctic’s living resources.

We have an opportunity before us to vastly improve our understanding of change in the Arctic. While the North experiences growing pressure from climate change and resource development, our current monitoring is fragmented and uncoordinated, reducing our ability to understand what’s going on and therefore, effectively respond.

Arctic nations spend over half a billion dollars monitoring biodiversity – and yet, the return on our investment is poor. The CBMP is working with over 60 global partners to boost our current monitoring effort and deliver the most cutting edge information on Arctic change. Maintaining healthy Arctic ecosystems is a global imperative as the Arctic plays a critical role in the Earth’s physical, chemical and biological balance.

CASO aims to enhance understanding of the role of the Southern Ocean in past, present and future climate, including the overturning circulation of the Southern Ocean, water mass transformation, atmospheric variability, ocean-cryosphere interactions, physical-biogeochemical-ecological linkages, and teleconnections between polar and lower latitudes. CASO will deliver improved climate predictions, from models that incorporate a better understanding of southern polar processes; proof of concept of a viable, cost-effective, sustained observing system for the southern polar regions; and provide a baseline for the assessment of future change.

"Moved by the state" is an international, collaborative research activity addressing state-induced population movements in the circumpolar North in the 20th and 21st centuries. To that end, institutions from Canada, Finland, Greenland, Russia, and the U.S.A. will conduct research in Alaska, Canada, Greenland, and Russia from 2006-2010. Extensive anthropological fieldwork and demographic data collection and analysis will be used to track similarities and differences among selected case studies.

ITASC is a decentralized network of individuals and organisations working collaboratively in the fields of art, engineering and science on the interdisciplinary development and deployment of renewable energy, waste recycling systems and sustainable architecture to enable the production and distribution of open-format, open-source remote field research in Antarctica and the Arctic. ITASC is a lichen-like structure sharing and integrating local knowledge, resources and skills across seven continents in order to symbiotically engage with the air, ocean, earth and space commons.

The central idea of NOMAD is the establishment of a mobile observation platform. This is facilitated by a nomadic tent camp that houses an interdisciplinary group of researchers. They follow the annual migration of semi-domesticated reindeer in Kola Peninsula, Northwest Russia. This is a novel effort, putting social and other scientists on the reindeer trek on a long-term basis. By positioning themselves in close contact with migrating reindeer herds the researchers observe the delicate ecology and conditions of renewable resource use in the subarctic. Updates on the progress of the project, photographs and fieldwork diary entries can be found on this website.

OASIS will study the chemistry in the air over the Arctic Ocean. The health of mammals and humans is at stake, and a future change in climate will undoubtedly introduce unknown changes. OASIS will make use of a variety of platforms (icebreakers, ice islands, buoys) to obtain year-round information on the behavior of such key chemicals as ozone, mercury, and carbon dioxide. As the nature and extent of snow and ice cover is changing OASIS will assess the associated impact on, and by, climate change, and the human and ecosystem impacts of these chemicals.

Global Warming will have a large impact on glaciers in the Arctic region. Sea level will be affected, and substantial changes can be expected in sediment and fresh water supplies to embayments and fjords. In GLACIODYN we study the dynamics of Arctic glaciers by means of field observations, remote sensing from satellites, and computer modelling. This will deliver tools to make more accurate predictions about future changes.

"ENVIROVET ARCTIC will provide four weeks of lecture, laboratory and field experiences in Northern Norway and Svalbard to wildlife biologists, veterinarians, students on the university level and managers in the area of Arctic marine and terrestrial wildlife and ecosystem health. It course will highlight international cooperation and the transdisciplinary nature of work required for effective wildlife and ecosystem research and problem-solving in the Arctic. "

POLar study using Aircraft, Remote sensing, surface measurements and modelling of Climate, chemistry, Aerosols and Transport (POLARCAT) "Aerosols have a large effect on radiation transmission in the Arctic troposphere, both directly and indirectly via clouds. POLARCAT will study transport to the Arctic of aerosols, as well as of air pollution more generally, from anthropogenic sources and boreal forest fires. It will address the effects of this pollution on atmospheric chemistry and climate. POLARCAT will use a large number of aircraft, a ship, a train, surface stations, as well as satellite data and numerical models. The first campaign, from 26 March - 19 April will use two aircraft based in Longyearbyen, Spitsbergen. Other campaigns in February 2008 and summer 2008 will follow with aircraft being based at various locations throughout the Arctic and in the boreal region."

Inter-discipline Survey along Prydz Bay, Amery Ice Shelf and Dome A The 2000km interconnected Prydz Bay-Amery Ice Shelf-Lambert Basin-Dome A (PANDA) section in Antarctica plays an important role in Antarctic mass balance, sea level and climate change. About thirty observation systems for glaciology, oceanography, geology/geophysics, sun-earth physics, atmospheric science and astronomy will be installed and implemented along the section by the international cooperative expeditions leading by China during IPY2007-2009 and beyond.