An International Workshop to Define Research Priorities for Russian Arctic Land Shelf Interactions

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ABSTRACT This project is a workshop and is a contribution to the Arctic System Science Program. It will be held at the Byrd Polar Research Center where key scientific questions related to processes and environmental change in the Russian Arctic continental shelves and adjacent lowlands will be defined. A total of 35 participants, covering a range of disciplines in the bio-, geo- and social sciences will be invited to formulate scientific priorities. This workshop will focus on defining interdisciplinary and circumarctic research themes that would elucidate land/shelf interactions. A broad topical, temporal and spatial framework for the workshop is proposed to attract a wide group of scientists and identify the most compelling research ideas. The direction and mechanisms of climate change cannot be adequately addressed without a better understanding of processes and environments of the shelf seas of the Russian Arctic and the adjacent lowlands. Epicontinental shelf seas bounded by the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic Oceans comprise 25% of the shelf area of oceans and modulate key climatic parameters such as the exchange of oceanic heat, atmospheric gases, sea-ice and fresh water input. Large uncertainties remain on the cause, magnitude and timing of past glaciations in Siberia and concomitant changes in sea- ice, vegetation, fluvial discharge and animal migrations. Many present day issues relating to land/Arctic Ocean interactions also need to be evaluated. This is a "ground up" effort to assess the American scientific community's sense of priorities for research in the Russian Arctic. The workshop is an important step for the integration of North American scholarship with that of Russian colleagues who have decades of experience on these problems. The consensus of research priorities will provide a conceptual nucleus for proposing a Russian Arctic Science dimension for ARCSS.