Since the last SEARCH update in late February, the SEARCH Science Steering Committee (SSC) has focused on communications with the National Science Foundation (NSF) on a pending proposal to support SEARCH activities and a new organizational structure (see the main SEARCH website for a PDF for "Summary of the new SEARCH framework"). The SEARCH SSC hopes to be able to announce news soon.
Other activities over the past few months include:
- Members of the SEARCH SSC and Observing Change Panel have participated in NSF's webinar series on Long Term Observing Management, and have been actively discussing the topics posed via the webinars. A SEARCH position paper that responds to many of these topics is under initial development.
- The Arctic Science Summit Week (ASSW) and Arctic Observing Summit (AOS) meetings in April had strong participation from SEARCH. SEARCH representatives are involved in the initial planning for the next AOS planned for 2016 in Fairbanks, Alaska and will seek broad input from the research community on goals and topics for the Summit.
- The 2014 Sea Ice Outlook (now managed under the Sea Ice Prediction Network project) and Sea Ice for Walrus Outlook activities have been launched. Both projects have evolved this year as a result of input from the research and stakeholder communities. See the Sea Ice for Walrus website and the Sea Ice Prediction Network website for more information.
For more information about SEARCH activities, see the SEARCH website or contact Hajo Eicken, UAF (SEARCH SSC Chair) at hajo.eicken [at] gi.alaska.edu or Helen Wiggins, ARCUS (SEARCH Project Office) at helen [at] arcus.org.