programs relevant to research activities at the IARC will start to operate, being led by Japanese institutions. The relationship and possible coordination described below are rather brief, and much more can be expected to take place.
ARM and SHEBA are now carried out in order to clarify a radiation balance in the atmosphere including interactions with the land surface and sea ice. The scientific outcome and collected data from these programs will give useful keys to LARC researches. In addition to vapor transport in the atmosphere, air-land interactions are important aspects in GEWEX. As long as the IARC takes part in a study of the air-land processes in the North American Arctic, an effective coordination should be sought with GEWEX. In LEADEX a particular attention is paid to the heat transport through the sea surface in the ice covered ocean. Since LEADEX took a typical process study approach, it gives a valuable guidance to a process study carried at the IARC.
ACSYS and ARCS are providing comprehensive studies, both observational and modelling, with emphasis on oceanographic processes. A tight collaboration should be sought with SBI, in particular, for clarification of water mass formation and marine ecosystem, because these are central to the subjects pursued at the IARC. The results from all these programs will be combined into CLIVAR so that we will have capability of predicting global change. BESIS, whose regional focus is on the Bering Sea and its surrounding areas, includes many fields such as oceanography, ecology and socio-economy, and should be taken as a good example for conducting multidisciplinary research at the IARC. Interactions are expected with a new program, NOW, tackling processes related to polynya.
Since we require a large amount of data to describe paleoclimatic change, the IARC is seeking for a collaboration with GISP, PAGES and PALE, which are aiming at the reconstruction of paleoclimate from ice cores, lake sediment and ocean floor cores.
The terrestrial ecosystem should be monitored for a long period until we achieve a comprehensive description about its change. Hence, the IARC will coordinate its observational and modelling plans with LTER.
Japanese Science and Technology Agency has shown its initiative for global research. In addition to FRPGC as a major program, the Agency is going to lead SAGE that has a clear focus on physical and geochemical aspects in the subarctic gyre region. This region is exactly located between the regions covered by the IARC and the IPRC, which is build in Hawaii as a sister institute of the IARC. We should make serious efforts to establish a close linkage with the IPRC and SAGE. The Agency's initiative is extended to CREST: i.e., a multidisciplinary project has been funded in order to explore the marine environment in the Sea of Okhotsk, which is left as a region yet to be explored. Since many basic principles are common between the Arctic and the Sea of Okhotsk, the IARC will exchange information with this project.
JAMSTEC is planning field experiments in the Pacific section of the Arctic using floating buoys and research vessels. The focuses are given on ocean dynamics over the Arctic Shelves and dynamic-thermodynamic sea ice processes. The other experiment is under planning to reveal a hydrologic system associated with Yukon River. It is obvious for the IARC to keep a tight linkage with JAMSTEC activities. A new research satellite, ADEOSII, is going to be launched by NASDA with various sensors mounted. They will cover wide areas from the sea and land surface to upper atmosphere, and provide remote-sensing data for multidisciplinary environmental researches. Collaboration will be sought with NIPR for more rapid progress in polar science and more effective allocation of resources.
