A Monitoring Program for Ny-Ålesund Christina A. Pedersen Norwegian Polar Institute

Ny-Ålesund Science Plan

Marine flagship ”Kongsfjorden System” Terrestrial Ecosystems flagship Atmosphere research flagship Glaciology research flagship ® C. Lydersen ® L. Bakken ® C. Hübner ® E. Ø. Kjartansson Ny-Ålesund Research Flagship Programmes

The research Flagship Programs include: International and institutional cooperation Review of current status, identify knowledge gaps, plan for exchange of knowledge Priorities, recommendations, and strategies for future work and data sharing

WORKSHOP: Towards a coordinated Monitoring Program for Ny-Ålesund Tromsø 8-9 January 2015

Workshop goals Implement one coordinated, multi-disciplinary Monitoring Program for Ny-Ålesund The workshop identified ongoing monitoring within each Flagship The workshop discussed the key scientific questions to be asked in the future What we need to do is to assess if the current monitoring enable us to answer these science questions And we need to identify the basic scientific parameters for the Monitoring Program

Zackenberg Monitoring Program Ecosystem-based monitoring program Zackenberg Basic, with five subprograms: - ClimateBasis -GeoBasis -BioBasis -MarinBasis -GlacioBasis

ClimateBasis The parameters: air temp, rel. humidity, air pressure, wind speed, wind direction, all at two hights; snow depth, precipitation, incoming SW radiation, outgoing SW radiation, net radiation, PAR, ground temperature at five depths. The actual data and the manual includeing site description, information about measured parameters, procedures for measurements, and data processing are available at their website.

What can we learn from Zackenberg Supersites are the natural starting points for monitoring, and it can be expanded by satellites sites Important to develop and apply common tools/technology across sites Continuity of long-term observations must be secured Important to facilitate dialog between research, monitoring, logistics and stakeholders Global collaboration is needed to monitor and understand processes important to earth system science Monitoring and data archiving should follow international standards

Ny-Ålesund Ny-Ålesund is an international science community, with 11 stations each with their own programs and projects. Till now: The Science Plan, and the four Flagship Programmes form the basis The overview of all research and monitoring activities is limited and not regularly updated. Some duplication of measurements as well as gaps in long-term data sets has been identified

Ny-Ålesund basic monitoring program Work towards establishing a Ny-Ålesund basic monitoring program. The program will be developed around the ongoing monitoring, but not all ongoing monitoring will be part of the program. Identify the basic parameters. The flagship programs will be an integrated part of this We will put together a core scientific group that will develop the Program. The individual stations will take responsibility for different parts of the program. NPI will start collecting metadata of ongoing monitoring.

Category Parameter/derived parameter Connected to Research Station Responsible institute Responsible researcher (name) Responsible researcher ( ) Start year Location (GPS decimal length, WGS84) Data link (actual data) Data link (metadata) RiS number Dataset information (free text): Info about instrument/system/method; frequency/time resolution; location name; altitude; is there a data protocol (if yes, where); QA If the data is not in a database now, which database should it be in Can this parameter be part of the monitoring program? Metadata - fields

Metadata topic fields Hydrology Glaciers Sea Ice Oceanography Greenhouse gasses Pollutants Aerosols Trace metals Ionosphere Clouds Radiation Isotopes Marine biology Terrestrial biology Freshwater biology Seismology Meteorology Webcam