Background and Objectives Sub-Arctic seas support extraordinarily rich marine resources, which provide food and wealth to local communities. These seas include: the Okhotsk Sea, Oyashio shelf region, Bering Sea, Hudson Bay, Newfoundland/Labrador shelves, Gulf of St. Lawrence, Greenland shelves, Iceland regions, the Nordic Seas and the Barents Sea. These seas share several features in common: seasonal ice cover, freshwater from ice-melt and runoff, dramatic seasonality, reduced sunlight and low biodiversity. Recently, changes in species abundance or distribution have been observed within several Sub-Arctic marine ecosystems. A symposium on climate effects on the Sub-Arctic marine ecosystems is timely because these recent changes appear to correlate with fluctuations in the physical environment and because of the growing concern about anthropogenically induced climate change. Also, several new national programs in Sub-Arctic seas have recently been initiated, e.g. Bering Ecosystem Study (BEST), Effects of North Atlantic Climate Variability on the Barents Sea Ecosystem (ECOBE) and the Oyashio-pollock project in Japan. Additionally,
a new GLOBEC regional program, Ecosystem Studies of Sub-Arctic Seas
(ESSAS), is in the planning stage. This symposium offers the opportunity
to influence the implementation plans of ESSAS and BEST through
1 day workshops at the beginning (BEST) and end (ESSAS) of the symposium. |
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