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Circumarctic Environmental Observatories Network (CEON)

Principal Investigators of US participation in the international CEON initiative: Dr. Patrick J. Webber and Dr. Craig Tweedie

The concept of a Circumarctic Environmental Observatories Network (CEON) was introduced at Arctic Science Summit Week (ASSW) in 2000 at a meeting of the Forum of Arctic Research Operators (FARO). FARO members supported the CEON concept advocating that CEON be developed to promote measurement of environmental observations and dissemination of these to Arctic researchers whilst encompassing and building on the strengths of existing stations and environmental observatory networks within the Arctic. Since 2000, the CEON concept has received increasing support, including backing from the International Arctic Science Committee (IASC).

To date, presentations of the CEON concept have been made at the following meetings of various networks, research collaborations and polar research boards in Europe, Russia and the US in order to make contact and collect feedback from potential CEON stakeholder and user groups.

  • Alaska NEON workshop, Fairbanks (USA), August 26, 2002.
  • ENVINET meeting, Abisko (Sweden), September 11-15, 2002.
  • IASC/ITEX/FATE CATB workshop, Finse (Norway), October 3-4, 2002.
  • ITEX Finse (Norway), October 5-7, 2002.
  • SCANNET Reykjavik (Iceland), October 16-20, 2002.
  • CALM Lewes, (USA), November 11-15, 2002.
  • US Polar Research Board, Washington (USA), November 25, 2002.
  • ARCSS Meeting AGU, San Francisco (USA), December 5, 2002.
  • US Arctic LTER Meeting, Woods Hole (USA), March 1-4, 2003.
Presentations have focused on the necessity for the CEON initiative to meet the needs of the participating research community, science administrators, policy makers, industry, education and indigenous communities whilst providing linkages between disciplines and existing networks and connectivity spanning regional to circumarctic and global scales.

Deliberately, presentations of the CEON concept have made no mention or suggestion of measurements or processes that should or could be made or investigated. Instead, audiences have been asked to introduce their own bias into the development of CEON by providing feedback to the following question: "What would you do if you had the opportunity to conduct standardized long term, integrated measurements across all research stations and networks in the Arctic?" It is hoped that such an approach will facilitate the development and scope of CEON based on the experience, needs and future directions envisaged by a broad range of potential CEON stakeholder and user groups.

Excellent feedback and suggestions for the development of CEON have been provided to date. CEON was first identified to be primarily a terrestrial network but the considerable feedback received to date suggests that this may need to be reconsidered to also include marine networks. Suggested tasks that could be facilitated by CEON include:

  • Organizing a common annual meeting and venue for participating stakeholder and user groups.
  • Promoting the bulk acquisition and dispersion of standardized instrumentation (that promotes near-real time availability of data).
  • Development of an Internet accessible methods manual, which could offer a central archive for various sampling, instrumental and operational methods practiced in the Arctic by different networks, collaborations and stations.
  • Support for cross disciplinary/network/site education and knowledge exchange via the sponsoring of scholarships and research fellowships.
It is planned that the scoping and development of the CEON initiative will continue throughout 2003. This includes production of a web page early in the year that will host generic power point and poster presentations of the CEON concept translated into different languages of the Arctic. It is also hoped that an international workshop for late 2003 will formalize the CEON initiative by drafting a science plan and road map for its inception. The involvement of young people will play a significant role in this meeting.

The early and warm response to the CEON concept is testimony to the willingness of Arctic researchers to share their knowledge, expertise and energy to further understanding of the Arctic system and linkages to global processes. The future of large scale multi and interdisciplinary international science must be considered nothing short of bright and encouraging.

The CEON initiative should not be seen as duplicating prior or ongoing research effort, but an international endeavor that aims at forming a logistic and research framework within which ongoing and future research can be oriented to cumulatively form and facilitate long term research endeavors in the Arctic.

For further information on the CEON initiative and to express your interest in a CEON please contact Patrick Webber or Craig Tweedie. We invite your thoughts and ideas to facilitate the development of the CEON initiative. We will use this web site for keeping you up to date on the development of CEON so make sure to check back regularly.

Coming Soon: Generic power point and poster displays translated to various languages of the Arctic for you to download and make your own CEON presentations and promote long term integrated environmental observations throughout the Arctic.

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