Arctic climate change increases the need of a growing number of stakeholders for trustworthy weather and climate predictions, both within the Arctic and beyond. APPLICATE will address this challenge and develop enhanced predictive capacity by bringing together scientists from academia, research institutions and operational prediction centres, including experts in weather and climate prediction and forecast dissemination. APPLICATE will develop a comprehensive framework for observationally constraining and assessing weather and climate models using advanced metrics and diagnostics. This framework will be used to establish the performance of existing models and measure the progress made within the project. APPLICATE will make significant model improvements, focusing on aspects that are known to play pivotal roles in both weather and climate prediction, namely: the atmospheric boundary layer including clouds; sea ice; snow; atmosphere-sea ice-ocean coupling; and oceanic transports. In addition to model developments, APPLICATE will enhance predictive capacity by contributing to the design of the future Arctic observing system and through improved forecast initialization techniques. The impact of Arctic climate change on the weather and climate of the Northern Hemisphere through atmospheric and oceanic linkages will be determined by a comprehensive set of novel multi-model numerical experiments using both coupled and uncoupled ocean and atmosphere models. APPLICATE will develop strong user-engagement and dissemination activities, including pro-active engagement of end-users and the exploitation of modern methods for communication and dissemination. Knowledge-transfer will also benefit from the direct engagement of operational prediction centres in APPLICATE. The educational component of APPLICATE will be developed and implemented in collaboration with the Association of Early Career Polar Scientists (APECS).

Most human activity in the Arctic takes place along permafrost coasts, making them a key interface. They have become one of the most dynamic ecosystems on Earth because permafrost thaw is now exposing these coasts to rapid change: change that threatens the rich biodiversity, puts pressure on communities that live there and contributes to the vulnerability of the global climate system. NUNATARYUK will determine the impacts of thawing coastal and subsea permafrost on the global climate, and will develop targeted and co-designed adaptation and mitigation strategies for the Arctic coastal population. NUNATARYUK brings together world-leading specialists in natural science and socio-economics to: (1) develop quantitative understanding of the fluxes and fates of organic matter released from thawing coastal and subsea permafrost; (2) assess what risks are posed by thawing coastal permafrost, to infrastructure, indigenous and local communities and people’s health, and from pollution; (3) use this understanding to estimate the long-term impacts of permafrost thaw on global climate and the economy. NUNATARYUK will be guided by a Stakeholders’ Forum of representatives from Arctic coastal communities and indigenous societies, creating a legacy of collaborative community involvement and a mechanism for developing and applying innovative evidence-based interventions to enable the sustainable development of the Arctic.

Planet Earth faces unprecedented environmental changes that will affect all members of society. Arctic climate warming is more than twice the global rate and unpredictable extreme events cause major impacts on ecosystems and people. However, the Arctic atmospheric circulation causes extreme events and societal damage beyond the Arctic which need international research and monitoring to understand and predict. Furthermore, attitudes need to be changed throughout the world through outreach while the next generation needs to be equipped to live in a different world. INTERACT III innovates a pan-arctic network of 86 research stations in 16 northern countries to provide a fully integrated, advanced infrastructure now able to meaningfully address major societal challenges and provide services for 155 global and regional networks. Furthermore, the global reputation of INTERACT has attracted world-leading partners and enterprises to participate in reducing the impacts of hazardous change while maximizing the opportunities arising from new technologies. Specifically, INTERACT III provides comprehensive coordination of 64 partners and 86 research stations. The station managers design best practices to ensure excellent research, monitoring, education and outreach. INTERACT III builds on an extremely successful transnational access program that has already populated the Arctic with 900 researchers to further provide excellent science while reducing the environmental footprints of researchers through improving remote and virtual access. The access transnationality ensures new collaborations, innovative science and science diplomacy at a time of heightened geopolitical tensions. Station managers, transnational access and joint research activities cooperate to address major societal challenges in a fully integrated infrastructure while their data and understanding are made globally available through exceptional outreach and education and policy briefings to decision makers.

The general objective of the EDU-ARCTIC project is a cross-country adaptation of innovative practices in science education in Europe. EDU-ARCTIC will provide a custom-designed large-scale program to strengthen schools’ science education. EDU-ARCTIC will use innovative online tools for interactive open-access available for everyone to link Arctic research and school education in Europe. The program is dedicated to young students in the age of 13 to 20 and their teachers. The program will be based on 5 main components: 1) Broadcasts (webinar transmissions) of online lessons from polar stations on natural sciences and polar research related to important societal challenges. The content of webinars will be adopted to school curricula at various levels (regional, national and European); 2) “Polarpedia” – an online developing encyclopedia with scientific expressions, educational resources and dictionaries in at least 5 national European languages; 3) Arctic competitions for European pupils cooperating with their teachers, in which prize winners will be able to participate in polar expedition; 4) Monitoring system: all schools in Europe will be invited to participate in a program based on monitoring of phenological observations in schools’ surroundings, a web based portal for registrations and access to accumulated data. 5) Teachers workshops and trainings. The novel educational programme elaborated within EDU-ARCTIC will give European pupils the opportunity to get insights in Research and Innovation process by access to (two-way communication) lecture transmissions from polar stations, participation in arctic competitions and environmental monitoring in their own surroundings. The interaction with real-time scientific work will contribute to increased interest among young boys and girls in choosing STEM careers. The innovative EDU-ARCTIC program will attract young boys and girls by its novel approach to STEM skills, especially science.

The recent changes of the Arctic and the increased economic activity in the region have triggered a demand for accurate sea-ice and weather predictions, for information on the status of the Arctic Ocean, and for complex predictions of future scenarios. To address these issues of particular environmental and societal concern and to develop policy recommendations for a sustainable usage of the Arctic Ocean and its resources, the Arctic science community needs world-class research icebreakers (RIs) to access the ice-covered Arctic Ocean. The current shortage of availability of RIs and a not optimally coordinated polar research fleet impedes Europe’s capacity to investigate this region. There is thus an urgent need for providing European researchers with better RI capacities for the Arctic. ARICE aims at reaching this goal with the existing polar fleet by: 1) Networking ARICE will develop strategies to ensure the optimal use of the existing polar research vessels at a European and international level, working towards an International Arctic Research Icebreaker Consortium which will share and jointly fund operational ship time on the available RIs. 2) Trans-national access (TNA) ARICE will provide TNA to six key European and international RIs for European scientists, based on scientific excellence of submitted proposals: - PRV Polarstern, Germany - IB Oden, Sweden - RV Kronprins Haakon, Norway (under construction, to be operative in 2017) - RRS Sir David Attenborough, United Kingdom (under construction, to be operative in 2018) - CCGS Amundsen, Canada - RV Sikuliaq, United States of America 3) Joint research activities ARICE will improve the RIs’ services by partnering with maritime industry on a “ships and platforms of opportunity” programme and by exploring into new technologies that will lead to an improvement of ship-based and autonomous measurements in the Arctic Ocean. ARICE will implement virtual and remote access of data via an innovative 3D Virtual Icebreaker.