SVALHOLA (Svalbard Holocene Assembly on glaciers and climate history) workshop following the Svalbard Science Conference 2019

Climate change is one of the most serious challenges facing society today. Reconstructing past climate and environmental conditions is important for establishing natural reference values, which better our understanding of the causes and consequences of current and future changes. Previous investigations establishing long-term reference values from ca 13,000 to 7,000 years before present show that these time intervals resemble the current situation on Svalbard today (i.e. warmer regional waters and reduced land-based ice cover). However, unlike those earlier periods, orbital forcing and other natural driving forces cannot solely explain the current changes, strongly suggesting that the effects of human activity may already be driving changes similar to those seen in the past. An international network studying the glacier and climate history of Svalbard during the past 13,000 years (SVALHOLA) was established during the Svalbard Science Forum workshop “Svalbard Holocene Assembly on glaciers and climate history: A network for merging archives and promoting scientific and logistical collaboration” in February 2019. Future scientific questions identified by the network focus on how the Holocene environmental history in Svalbard may provide key information about the future operation and state of the Arctic climate system. The network also identified areas were additional expertise was required, such as Earth System modeling and paleo-ecology, which would greatly help specify key future science questions to address in future funding proposals. The network would also benefit from a knowledge database integrating current knowledge of Holocene environmental change on Svalbard, which may be relevant for SIOS. The overall aim of the proposed workshop is to identify future scientific questions that should be focus for future collaboration and form basis for future funding proposals. Dissemination of the results is also key and both a report and white paper will be prepared.