Climate-Ecological Observatory for Arctic Tundra (COAT)

This infrastructure project constitutes the logistic and instrumental foundation for Climate Ecological Observatory for Arctic Tundra (COAT). COAT is a long-term research program that will enable real time documentation and understanding of climate impacts on terrestrial ecosystems in the Norwegian Arctic. The observatory will provide a knowledge system that underpins adaptations and management interventions to handle climate impacts on vulnerable ecosystem services and biodiversity. As similar observatories are entirely lacking from the Eurasian Arctic, COAT will considerably strengthen Norway's position as an international leader in research and management of Arctic environments. COAT Infrastructure consists of instrumentation and logistics systems for low-Arctic Finnmark and high-Arctic Svalbard and a database and coordination service for whole observatory. A long-term science program based on this infrastructure is outlined in COAT’s science plan (see www.coat.no). The operation of the program is funded over the Norwegian state budget from 2024. COAT is chaired by UiT-The Arctic University of Norway have the Norwegian Polar Institute, the Norwegian Institute of Nature Research and Norwegian Meteorological Institute as main partners. COAT includes an active interphase with education and outreach, as well as stakeholders and management agencies.

Climate Ecological Observatory for Arctic Tundra (COAT) is a long-term research initiative of the FramCentre. It will enable real time documentation and understanding of climate impacts on terrestrial arctic ecosystems and provide an adaptive knowledge system that underpins management counteraction of detrimental climate impacts on vulnerable arctic ecosystem services and biodiversity. COAT will expand on existing ecological long-term time series from both high- and low-arctic Norway and integrate these with a new climate observation network to become a cutting-edge climate impact observation system. As similar observatories are entirely lacking from the whole Eurasian Arctic, COAT will considerably strengthen Norway's position as an international leader in research and management of arctic environments. Specifically, the overarching aim of COAT, as stated in a comprehensive science plan, is to become the most comprehensive and management relevant research enterprise concerning arctic terrestrial ecosystems worldwide and serve as a role model for implementation sister observatories elsewhere. An international panel review of the COAT science plan found it to be of excellent quality and identified the only challenge for reaching its ambitious goals to be lack of sufficient funding. Here we submit a proposal - fully based on the science plan - that accommodates the infrastructural underpinning of COAT. The infrastructure consists of three parts; a) instrumentation system for low-arctic COAT Varanger, b) instrumentation system for the high arctic COAT Svalbard (funding received from Tromsø Forskningsstiftelse) and c) database and coordination services for whole observatory. COAT will be run by 5 FramCentre institutions, but the infrastructure will be used by many external national and international research groups. COAT includes an active interphase with education though the research school AMINOR and Tundra schoolnet, as well as stakeholders and management agencies.